India and Australia have decided to deepen their engagement by concluding a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) at the earliest.
Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal held talks with his Australian counterpart Dan Tehan to expedite the CECA negotiations.
According to a statement released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the two leaders held talks on 21 December through video conference. “The ministers appreciated the progress made in various rounds of talks between the chief negotiators of both sides and discussed the way forward for an early conclusion of the interim agreement,” the Commerce and Industry Ministry said.
“In this regard, both the ministers appreciated that bilateral trade talks have been very progressive and both the ministers have decided to deepen the engagement and directed the officials to speed up the negotiations to pave the way for a comprehensive agreement,” it said.
Both the ministers also pitched for a rules-based international trading system.
Recent years have seen remarkable growth in the trading relationship between India and Australia, fuelled by the many complementarities between the two economies. Two-way trade in goods and services has grown in value from $13.6 billion in 2007 to $24.3 billion in 2020.
India and Australia launched negotiations for the CECA in May 2011. There were nine rounds of negotiations before both countries decided to suspend negotiations in September 2015, pending the outcome of other multilateral regional negotiations.
In June 2020, as part of the joint statement on a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between India and Australia, Prime Ministers Modi and Morrison decided to re-engage on a bilateral CECA while suitably considering earlier bilateral discussions, where a mutually agreed way forward can be found.