New Australian govt supports trade pact with India, says Piyush Goyal
NEW DELHI: The new Australian government supports the trade pact signed with India, and they are expected to soon approach their parliament for approval of the agreement, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has said.
India-Australia Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (ECTA) signed in April needs ratification by Australian parliament before its implementation.
“I met minister Mr Don Farrell, who looks after trade in the new (Australian) government, and he has confirmed that they will be taking the Indus-ECTA to parliament very soon and they support the agreement and would like to further expand their engagement with India in the months and years to come,” Goyal said.
The agreement, once implemented, will provide duty-free access to the Australian market for over 6,000 broad sectors of India, including textiles, leather, furniture, jewellery and machinery.
Goyal had earlier said that the agreement would help in taking bilateral trade from $27.5 billion at present to $45-50 billion in the next five years.
Under the pact, Australia is offering zero-duty access to India for about 96.4 per cent of exports (by value) from day one. This covers many products that currently attract 4-5 per cent customs duty in Australia.
Labour-intensive sectors, which would gain immensely include textiles and apparel, few agricultural and fish products, leather, footwear, furniture, sports goods, jewellery, machinery, electrical goods and railway wagons.
Australia is the 17th largest trading partner of India, while New Delhi is Canberra’s 9th largest partner. India’s goods exports were worth $6.9 billion and imports aggregated to $15.1 billion in 2021.
Meanwhile, the Commerce and Industry Minister has said that, the proposal to repeal archaic laws on tea, coffee, spices and rubber and introduce new legislations is aimed at promoting ease of doing business and helping small farmers.
The commerce ministry has conducted stakeholder consultations on the drafts of Spices (Promotion and Development) Bill, 2022; Rubber (Promotion and Development) Bill, 2022; Coffee (Promotion and Development) Bill, 2022; Tea (Promotion and Development) Bill, 2022 to address their concerns.
The Department of Commerce has said it is proposing repeal of the Tea Act, 1953; Spices Board Act, 1986; Rubber Act 1947; and Coffee Act 1942.
“These are very old laws and the idea is only to simplify them, make it easier to do business, ensure that the small people in the different areas like coffee growing, tea growing do not have to suffer from high levels of compliance burden,” Goyal said.
He was replying to a question about the objective behind introducing new legislations.
When asked if there is any opposition on the move, he said there is consensus among stakeholders concerned.
“Our stakeholder consultations have gone very well and we have been able to satisfy the various stakeholders involved,” he added.
When asked if these bills can be introduced in Monsoon session of Parliament, Goyal said they have not yet taken a final call on that.
According to the draft bills, posted on the website of the commerce ministry, the new legislations are proposed to reflect the present realities and objectives.
As per the draft, the principal reason for proposing the repeal of the Tea Act is that there is a paradigm shift in the recent decade with respect to the way tea is grown, marketed and consumed and this necessitates amendment of the existing Act.
Also, there is a need to enable the Spices Board to provide focused attention across the entire supply chain of spices.
Explaining the rationale behind the proposal to repeal the Rubber Act, the draft bill says that in recent years, there have been widespread changes in the industrial and economic scenario especially with regard to development in rubber and allied sectors.
The draft Coffee (Promotion and Development) Bill, 2022, underlines that substantive portion of the existing Act dealing with pooling and marketing of coffee have become redundant/inoperative.
The pact will give duty-free access to Australian market for over 6,000 Indian sectors, including textiles, leather, furniture, jewellery and machinery