An influential Indian cabinet minister says Australia and India should aim for a $500 billion economic relationship, a tenfold increase on the current value of trade between the two nations.
India’s Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal says the “huge trust” developed between the two nations during the past decade makes ambitious trade and investment targets possible.
India’s Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal says the second stage of a historic 2022 Australia-India trade deal will be finalised soon.Credit: Natalie Boog
Goyal, who is visiting Australia to promote trade and investment, also predicted that the second stage of a historic 2022 Australia-India trade deal – allowing Australian firms greater access to India’s giant market – would be finalised soon.
He added that the goal of reaching a “$500 billion economic engagement” between the two nations was canvassed at a meeting he attended with business leaders in Sydney on Monday.
“For a moment, I was taken aback, but I love big targets,” he said. “When I thought about it, if I expect [India] to be a $2 trillion exporting nation, then I’ll roughly be a $2 trillion importer – so India will have a $4 trillion trade.”
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“Australia is already at about $1 trillion [in trade] and that will grow to about $1.5 trillion ... I’m talking of around 2030. So collectively we will be at about $5.5 trillion, and we should aim for 10 per cent of that to come from Australia and India. Let’s aim big – given the huge trust between the two countries, I would think we should go for it.”
Australia’s two-way trade with India was valued at $46.5 billion in 2022, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade figures show.
The International Monetary Fund has forecast that the Indian economy, the world’s fifth-largest, will expand by a robust 7 per cent this year. In 2023, India surpassed China to become the world’s most populous nation.