WATTS: KEEN TO START DIGITAL SERVICES’ TRADE TALKS WITH INDIA
NEW DELHI: Australia is keen to begin discussions with India on trade in digital services under a final trade deal that will build on an interim agreement, signed in April, because digital trade underpins all commerce, Australian deputy foreign minister Tim Watts said on Saturday.
Recent contacts between the new Australian government led by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Chinese leadership won’t affect Canberra’s commitment to the relationship with New Delhi, Watts said, pointing out that concerns remain across the region about China’s growing assertiveness.
Albanese’s planned visit to India in March 2023 is being seen as an effort to give a push to the proposed comprehensive economic cooperation agreement (CECA) after the two sides signed the interim deal or Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (ECTA) this year. Following a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the margins of the G20 Summit in Bali, Albanese said both sides see the conclusion of CECA as “very important for expanding economic relations”.
Watts, who was in India with a delegation to participate in the Bengaluru Tech Summit and to represent Australia at the “No Money For Terror” meeting in New Delhi, said that an Australian parliamentary panel endorsed the ECTA on Friday.
“Our next agenda is the comprehensive economic cooperation agreement and one of the things we do want to explore in that negotiation is digital services,” he said. The trade ministers of India and Australia have committed themselves to commencing negotiations on this “as soon as possible”. “We think that digital trade is a really worthwhile agenda because it’s not just transit of data, it really underpins all trade in the global system now,” he said.