Australia for more access to Indian market

By siliconindia staff writer   |   Friday, 13 August 2004, 19:30 IST
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SYDNEY: Describing India as an "emerging economic power", Australian Minister for Trade Mark Vaile on Friday said his country is keen to see its place in the Indian market grow. "For the Government, this means strengthening the bilateral economic framework with India and to maximise access for Australian business to the increasing benefits the Indian market has to offer," Vaile said . He was speaking at the launch of 'India:The Next Economic Giant' paper written by Mark Thirwell of the Lowy Institute, an independent Sydney-based international policy think-tank. Observing that India's economy is now one of the world's fastest growing, the Minister said, "its challenge will be to sustain that growth and lift it to even higher levels and that will require a renewed commitment to reform, which we are upbeat and positive this new government will make". Australia is looking forward to hosting Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Kamal Nath later this year to co-chair the Joint Ministerial Committee meeting, he said. Vaile said, "It is clearly in Australia's interests to strengthen the framework for our future bilateral commercial engagement with this emerging economic power and India has every possibility of becoming a major market for Australia". The Trade Minister acknowledged India's sensitivities on agriculture, which may make a Free Trade Agreement with the country a longer-term prospect. Not just bilateral, Vaile said, "both countries are firmly committed to also making the multilateral trading system fairer".