NEW DELHI – India and Australia signed an interim free trade deal on Saturday that cuts tariffs on billions of dollars of commerce as the two Quad partners bolster their economic ties.
Both signatories are members of the Quad alliance with the United States and Japan, which is seen as a counterweight to an increasingly assertive China.
But while they both border the Indian Ocean, Canberra says India was only Australia’s seventh-largest trading partner in 2020, and accounted for just over four percent of its exports last year.
The Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement was signed simultaneously in New Delhi and Canberra by India’s commerce minister Piyush Goyal and his Australian counterpart Dan Tehan in a joint ceremony.
India and Australia are “natural partners, connected by shared values of democracy, rule of law and transparency”, Goyal said according to AFP.
“Our relationship rests on the pillars of trust and reliability aptly reflected in our deepening geo-strategic engagement through the QUAD and the supply chain resilience initiative.”
Two-way trade reached around $27.5 billion last year according to New Delhi, with resource-rich Australia exporting coal and other commodities, along with sheep meat, and India largely supplying finished goods and services.
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