Bilateral Trade between Australia and India: Trade Affair of Both the Country

With the aim to enhance industrial and manufacturing activity and to drive economic growth, India and Australia have partnered in areas like agrifood, mining, infrastructure, healthcare and education.

Both the countries aim to reach a long pending landmark trade deal by the end of 2022. As per the Australia Import Data, the bilateral trade deal was around Aus$24 billion last year, with India exporting is key services sector and Australia coal going the other way.

Both India and Australia are the members of the Quad alliance with the United States and Japan and are looking to deepen strategic ties to counter China both economically and other areas as well. Furthermore, both the countries plan to reach the early harvest interim deal by year end where some duties will already be cut.

The balance trade agreement encourages expanded trade and investment flows to benefit both the economies. As per the India Import Data, India was Australia’s seventh largest trading partner and the sixth largest export market in 2020.

Australia is also increasingly important destination for Indian exports. With the formal resumption of negotiations on the India-Australia comprehensive economic cooperation agreement during the 17th India- Australia joint ministerial commission held on September 2021, the bilateral trade relationship is expected to deepen further.

It is also agreed by both the sides to finalize the long pending free trade agreement covering trade in goods and services, investments etc by the end of 2022. The GDP of India in 2019 stood at US$2.97 trillion whereas Australia’s GDP during the same period was US$1.4 trillion.

India also ranked 44th in the economic complexity index and 15th in total exports. Australia ranked 79th in the economic complexity index and 19th in total exports. India’s export basket to Australia comprises of goods like petroleum products, apparels etc. Australia’s exports to India include coal, LNG, alumina and non-monetary gold.

In the service sector major Indian exports to Australia are related to travel, telecom and computer, government and financial services while Australian services exported to India are related to education and personal services.

In the year 2019, India exported US$3.19 billion to Australia. The main products that India exported to Australia are refined petroleum, packaged medicaments, and railway passenger cars. During the last 24 years, Indian exports to Australia have increased at an annual rate of 8.67% from US$433 million in 1995 to US$3.19 billion in 2019.

In the same year, Australia exports to India amounted to US$15.3 billion. The main products that Australia exported to India were coal briquettes, gold and petroleum gas. During the last 24 years, Australian exports to India have increased at an annual rate of 10.5%. Education remains the Australia’s largest service export to India, valued at US$ 4.46 billion and accounting for around 88% of the total in 2020.

India offers umpteen numbers of investment opportunities to Australian investors as there is heightened demand for upgrade infrastructure in swiftly growing urbanizing towns and logistics infrastructure.

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