Belgium is pushing for the European Union to begin free trade talks with Australia in early 2017.
Belgian Deputy Prime Minister Didier Rynders, who's visiting the region for bilateral talks with a number of countries, supports a push for a European Commission mandate for free trade talks to begin by the end of March.
"It is important to start a negotiation and to try to have a better relation on trade with, if it's possible, less and less tariffs. That's the first goal," he told AAP in Sydney on Friday.
Mr Rynders said the other issue that needed to be addressed to progress trade talks was regulations, including financial rules, social issues, environmental standards and labour.
The deputy prime minister held talks with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop during his five-day visit to Sydney.
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Mr Rynders also said he was impressed with Australia's programs to integrate both economic migrants and refugees after visiting a Settlement Services International office in Bankstown.
There has been a high level of international media commentary in recent years about Belgium's perceived failure to integrate new arrivals and second-generation immigrants, some of whom have been involved in terrorist attacks in Europe.
Mr Rynders said Australia's emphasis on making people newly arrived in the country learn the English language and training them to enter the workforce was interesting.
"We need to learn the best practices .... to see what are the best practices, certainly for the integration process," he said.
However, Mr Rydners noted that as an island country Australia had the ability to control who entered the country so managing programs to integrate new arrivals in society was different for Belgium.
The deputy prime minister will fly to New Zealand next, followed by Fiji, as part of his country's campaign to gain a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council in 2019-2020.
He said Australia has already committed to supporting the Belgian bid in return for his country's support for Australia's bid for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council in 2018-20.
