PM Modi’s Visit To Expedite India-Australia FTA Process: FIEO

With Prime Minister Narendra Modi all set to visit Australia for G20 summit, Indian exporters hope that the new government will be able to ink the prolonged bilateral agreement with Australia.

“We really hope that the FTA is implemented this time. The bilateral Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between India and Australia has already been through five rounds of negotiations, with the last discussion held in May 2013,” said Ajay Sahai, director general and CEO of Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) exclusively to BI India.

He added that the trade between both the countries has rapidly grown in the last decade from $5.1 billion in 2003 to $15.2 billion in 2013. “As far as our exports are concerned, I believe we need some diversification in our exports. Australia offer a new market for our exporters including the traditional export sectors such as leather, textiles, engineering, pharmaceuticals among others. The FTA is expected to immensely benefit these sectors,” noted Sahai.

Talking about the challenges in the trade with Australia, Subhash Goyal, member of the managing committee and chairman of the services sector, FIEO, pointed out that one of the major issues faced by Indian exporters especially in the services sector, is the accreditation. “In number of services exchanged between India and Australia, we have been facing accreditation problems. So we hope the PM discusses the issue and some arrangement can be worked out so that our respective accreditation is mutually recognized by respective countries”, said Goyal.

Apart from discussing the challenges in the bilateral trade, Sahai asserted that PM Modi’s visit could also result in considerable joint ventures. “We can look for some joint ventures in some of the services. Tourism being one of them as there is a large outflow of Indian tourists to Australia,” he said.

FIEO has stated that it has received tremendous response from several Indian companies for India Expo at Melbourne’s Australian International Sourcing Fair slated to be held from November 18-November 20, 2014.