{"id":34576,"date":"2022-11-23T06:39:24","date_gmt":"2022-11-23T01:09:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=34576"},"modified":"2025-04-20T15:15:08","modified_gmt":"2025-04-20T09:45:08","slug":"australian-parliament-clears-way-for-india-trade-deal-phase-2-talks-soon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/australian-parliament-clears-way-for-india-trade-deal-phase-2-talks-soon\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian Parliament Clears Way for India Trade Deal, Phase 2 Talks Soon"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>India-Australia Bilateral Relation<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>News Summary<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why In News?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The Australian Parliament ratified the\u00a0<strong>Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (ECTA)<\/strong>\u00a0with India, paving the way for implementing the deal.<\/li>\n<li>After the ratification, both sides will decide a date to implement the pact and customs authorities will also issue a notification a day before the implementation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>India-Australia Bilateral Relation: In Brief<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>India and Australia established diplomatic relations in the pre-Independence period, with the\u00a0<u>establishment of India Trade Office in Sydney in 1941<\/u>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Strategic Relationship<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>In 2009,\u00a0<strong>India and Australia established a \u2018Strategic Partnership\u2019<\/strong>, including a Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation.<\/li>\n<li>This cooperation has been further elevated to\u00a0<strong>Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (CSP) in 2020<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>The Australian foreign policy blueprint released in November 2017 sees\u00a0<u>India in the front rank of Australia\u2019s international partnerships<\/u>.<\/li>\n<li>In order to pursue the CSP, Foreign and Defence Ministers of both countries\u00a0<u>agreed to meet in a \u20182+2\u2019 format biennially<\/u>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Economic and Trade Relationship<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>As part of its efforts to develop strong economic relationship with India, the Australian Government commissioned the\u00a0<u>India Economic Strategy to 2035<\/u>\u00a0in July 2018.<\/li>\n<li>This was done to define a pathway for Australia to unlock opportunities offered by Indian Economic growth.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Bilateral Trade:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>India had a trade deficit of $8.5 billion with Australia in FY22, with $8.3 billion worth of exports and $16.8 billion worth of imports.<\/li>\n<li>Total bilateral trade is expected to cross $45-50 billion in five years from $25 billion at present after the free trade deal comes into force.<\/li>\n<li>India was the\u00a0<u>8th largest trade partner of Australia<\/u>\u00a0with trade in goods and services representing 3% share of the total Australian trade in FY 2019-20.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Civil Nuclear Cooperation<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>A Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement between the two countries was signed in September 2014 during the visit of then PM Tony Abbott to India.<\/li>\n<li>The agreement provides the framework for substantial new trade in energy between Australia and India.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Defence Cooperation<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>During PM Modi&#8217;s visit to Australia in November 2014, both sides decided to extend defence cooperation to cover research, development and industry engagement.<\/li>\n<li>Arrangement concerning\u00a0<u>Mutual Logistics Support<\/u>\u00a0(MLSA) and Implementing Arrangement concerning cooperation in Defence Science and Technology were concluded during the Virtual Summit held in June 2020.<\/li>\n<li>India and Australia conduct their\u00a0<u>bilateral naval exercise &#8216;AUSINDEX&#8217;<\/u>\u00a0since 2015.\n<ul>\n<li>In 2018, Indian Air Force participated for the first time in the\u00a0<u>Exercise Pitch Black<\/u>\u00a0in Australia.<\/li>\n<li>In October-November 2020, the Australian Navy participated in\u00a0<u>Malabar Exercises<\/u>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Repatriation of Indian Cultural Artifacts<\/strong>:<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>A number of artifacts have been successfully repatriated to India in recent years. They include:\n<ul>\n<li>Bronze Idol of Nataraja from Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA) (2019),<\/li>\n<li>Nagaraja stone sculpture (2020),<\/li>\n<li>2 Dwarpala stone sculptures (2020).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Indian Community in Australia<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>It continues to grow in size and importance, with the population of about seven hundred thousand.<\/li>\n<li>India is one of the top sources of skilled immigrants to Australia.<\/li>\n<li>The number of Indian\u00a0<strong>students<\/strong>\u00a0continue to grow with approximately 105,000 students presently studying in Australian universities.\n<ul>\n<li>After England,\u00a0<u>India is the second largest migrant group<\/u>\u00a0in Australia in 2020.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>News Summary<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>India and Australia would now implement the free trade agreement on a mutually agreed date as the Australian Parliament approved the pact between the two countries.\n<ul>\n<li>The India-Australia Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement needed ratification by the Australian parliament before its implementation.<\/li>\n<li>In India, such pacts are approved by the Union Cabinet.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>India-Australia Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (IA-ECTA)<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>In April 2022, India and Australia signed an Economic Co-operation and Trade Agreement (ECTA).<\/li>\n<li>The aim of this agreement is to\u00a0<u>double the bilateral trade to $50 billion<\/u>\u00a0in five years and ease movement of people, goods and services across borders.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Key Highlights of the IA-ECTA<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com\/media\/editor_images\/2022\/11\/23\/13\/19\/16\/637dd07cbce1260db343816e_OI.PNG\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Ambitious pact with significant commitments to tariff cuts<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Australia has agreed to eliminate Customs duty immediately on 98.3 per cent of the traded goods and on 100 per cent tariff lines over a period of five years.<\/li>\n<li>India, on the other hand, will do away with Customs duties on 40 per cent of products immediately and on 70.3 per cent of tariff lines over a period of 10 years.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>With respect to labour intensive sector<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Major labour-intensive sectors in India that will benefit from the elimination of 5 per cent Customs duty at present include textiles and apparel, agricultural products, leather, furniture, jewellery, and pharmaceuticals.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>With respect to agriculture and dairy sectors<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>India has managed to completely shield its dairy sector from any tariff reduction under the FTA while excluding most sensitive agriculture items.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Provisions for services<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Both countries have decided to facilitate the recognition of professional qualifications, licensing, and registration procedures between professional services bodies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>India and Australia established diplomatic relations in the pre-Independence period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":34577,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-34576","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}