Bilateral trade between India and Australia is likely to be doubled by 2015 and all efforts are being made to achieve the target, according to Consul (Commercial) and Trade Commissioner for South India Michael Carter.
He was interacting with members of the Confederation of Indian Industry here on Thursday evening. He said bilateral trade, at present amounting to $21 billion, may touch or cross $40 billion mark by 2015. “It will be our earnest endeavour to double the trade by 2015. We have 11 offices in India, but we still rely heavily on the CII for reaching out to the industry and trade in all parts of the country, especially tier-two cities,” he said.
He said infrastructure development, mining, bio-tech, IT, power, water management, agri-processing, tourism and education were some of the potential and promising areas of collaboration between the two countries. “It is not that we are looking at big industries only, we focus on the SMEs as well. We want SMEs in Visakhapatnam and other cities to explore business opportunities in our country and to make use of our expertise in certain areas, such as fisheries, to their advantage,” he said.
Carter expressed happiness that Vizag will be connected soon with Singapore as it would open up many avenues for cargo export as well besides giving a great boost to tourism. “Indian tourists are visiting Australia in greater numbers in recent times and they are spending a lot. We want Indian hoteliers to explore the possibility of setting up hotels in our country,” he said.
He said there was also acute shortage of skilled labour in Australia in the mining sector and India could meet part of the demand at least. He said an Australia-India Research Fund had been set up and “currently 75 projects are in the pipeline.” He spoke about co-operation in the defence sector.
Carter said education was one area of great importance to both countries and there should be greater collaboration between universities in both the countries. Indian students were welcome in Australia, he said.