Union Minister of Railways, Commerce and industry, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public distribution Shri Piyush Goyal today said that there is tremendous scope for Australian investment into India as we ease our FDI norms & open up different sectors. Addressing CII's session on Enhancing India Australia Bilateral Economic and Trade Relationship, he said that we have also opened up our Agri sector for greater investments in food processing & value addition. The Minister also launched India-Australia Economic Strategy Report.

The minister said that we are continuously trying to make our FDI policies more facilitative & congenial & supportive of foreign investment. He said that newer areas like space, nuclear energy & defence production will open up good opportunities for our mutual engagement. Emerging sectors of defence, sports, textiles, textile designing, digital gaming, animation, water management, commercial ship-building, space collaboration & digital engagement in education, hold great promise in our efforts to balance this trade relationship, he mentioned.

Shri Goyal said that recent labour reforms will also enable a new ecosystem for labour regulations and flexibility in employment. Areas like tourism will generate a lot of jobs in India under the new framework, and will make tourism projects in India more viable. He said that we wish to ensure that the farmers of India get even greater incomes which would only be possible with more value-added on our farm produce and greater engagement with the rest of the world, to meet the needs of the international community.

Shri Goyal specifically mentioned that with 3B objectives: Bigger trade basket - Better trade basket – Balanced trade relationship, we can see huge & exponential growth in our trade relationship.

The Minister said that in the backdrop of the pandemic, the focus of the industry, which had been to bring back economic activity, is yielding very good results. The economy is showing a V-shaped recovery. “India has utilised the opportunity thrown up by COVID 19 to further liberalise our economy & make it easier to do business in India. We are one of the most open economies today particularly with FDI in automatic route up to 100% in almost all sector expect.”

Shri Goyal said that diversification of supply chains is critical for managing the risks associated with the supply of inputs, including disciplining non-transparent & opaque economies. Australia & India have been working together even more closely on the strategic front, be it Malabar exercises, QUAD groupings, the partnership on several strategic areas. He added that this close collaboration will feed into our economic partnership also in the years to come.

Shri Goyal mentioned that efforts like the Australia Strategy Report will help us to align our trade & economic policies to implement this strategy report. “We can find good areas of cooperation which will also dovetail into our negotiations for a comprehensive economic partnership agreement”, he added.

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YB/AP