Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has vowed to speed up negotiations with India over a free-trade deal after meeting his counterpart Narendra Modi in New Delhi on Monday.
On the first day of his state visit to India, Malcolm Turnbull was full of praise for a country that's experienced such extraordinary growth.
"The success you have achieved is the wonder of the world, the largest democracy in the world, shortly to be the largest nation in the world, built out of so much diversity and you have achieved this with such remarkable unity of purpose," he said.
The Prime Minister said two-way trade between Australia and India was at $20 billion which had doubled over the past decade but had a huge potential to grow.
Source: MEA, India
"But given the complementarities of our two economies this is fraction of the level it should and could be and I think it's fair to say that we feel that progress has not been as fast as we would like it to be. We will ask our chief negotiators to schedule an early meeting to get the process moving."
He admitted, though, closing a trade deal with India would take time but the Federal Government was hopeful it can increase its exports, particularly when it comes to energy commodities, higher education, and professional services.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was open to more collaboration, saying education and innovation is vital to the prosperity of his own country and Australia.
Source: MEA, India
Indian PM Modi said, "It is no surprise therefore that co-operation in the field of education and research is one of the most important aspects of our engagement. The Australia-India research fund, of nearly $100 million, focuses on collaborative research projects in areas such as nanotechnology, smart cities, infrastructure."
Prime Minister Modi said he was keen to boost education exchanges between the two countries.
Source: MEA, India
"Australia is home to more than 60,000 Indian students and an increasing number of students are coming to study in India."
Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott set an ambitious 12-month timetable on trade talks when he was in office, however, an agreement was never reached.
Executive Director of the Australia South Asia Research Centre, Raghbendra Jha says demand for free access to Australia for Indian workers is what's slowing down the talks, along with a desire for greater access to India's heavily protected agriculture industry.
"India is very committed to protecting its farmers, its peasant farmers, which are hundreds of millions in number and removing guarantees that are implicit, and explicit, in the Indian legal system is something which is fraught with political (land)mines, nobody will touch that," Mr Jha said.
The Australian wrote Indian push to relax rules for India’s skilled workers was a key stumbling block in free trade talks.
Speaking to the press in New Delhi on Monday evening, PM Turnbull said, “Our commitment and our determination is to ensure that, obviously, where jobs can be done by Australians, they are done by Australians. Where there is a genuine shortage of skills, then we can bring in skilled persons from overseas. A great number of those have come from India … it has a very, very talented population.’’
For Australia, opportunities for exports of coal are there, if the giant Adani Carmichael mine tipped for Queensland's Galilee basin goes ahead as planned.
Source: Twitter / Narendra Modi
The Adani company wants nearly one billion dollars from the Northern Australia Infrastructure fund, but Mr Turnbull says it's not up to him.
"As far as a rail link is concerned, if you are asking about Adani's interest in securing funding from the Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund, that's an independent process, it has to go through that process, through that independent assessment by the board."
The $21.7 billion Carmichael project was approved in December but has faced serious opposition from environmental groups.
