Even as the FIFA World Cup has kicked off in Brazil, another country is gearing up to cash in on the craze for cricket in India at next year’s cricket world cup. Match Australia, the Australian Government’s international sports business programme, which connects Australian businesses with global partners through major sporting events, is lining up a series of events to help promote Australian capabilities and enhanced business opportunities across trade, investment, education and tourism with India during the cricket world cup to be held there.
“For each match we will focus on holding a series of business round tables where we hope to have top Indian and Australian businesses coming together to talk about how they can collaborate and form joint ventures and also supply one another with new products and services,” Nicola Watkinson, Austrade’s Senior Trade and Investment Commissioner, South Asia, told the Business Line . This will be done across a number of industry sectors. “Premium food and wine particularly for South Australia and also in the area of resources and energy, IT particularly in Victoria, which is a very large focus for them and in areas such as education and research,” Nicola added.
In addition, there will be tailored visit programmes and meetings for each Indian delegate who goes to Australia during the cricket world cup.
Australian High Commission officials said that while it is still early to talk about specific registrations for the various round tables as the event is still about eight months away, indications from meetings in Mumbai and Delhi have been very positive.
The 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup, which runs from February 14 to March 29 is slated to be the biggest sporting event next year with an estimated television audience of one billion people with more than a million people expected to attend the matches.