India and Australia held “intensive discussions” on a wide range of issues, including goods, services and digital trade, and underlined commitment to strengthen and enhance economic partnership during the 10th round of Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) negotiations between the two sides, an official statement said on Sunday.
The talks took place from August 19 to 22 in Sydney and also focused on areas such as government procurement, rules of origin and agricultural technology.
“During the meeting, intensive discussions and negotiations were held to narrow differences by better understanding each other’s proposals and ways to achieve convergence. Both sides made efforts taking into account internal sensitivities to achieve a balanced outcome,” the statement said.
The two sides also reviewed bilateral trade and investment relations and underlined commitment to strengthening and enhancing the India-Australia economic partnership.
“Both sides have made efforts to ensure that the ECSC negotiations produce significant benefits and balanced outcomes for both sides,” he said.
This was the first round of negotiations since the general elections in New Delhi in June. The tenth round of negotiations was held after a gap of around five months since the previous round. However, intersessional meetings were held between these two rounds to achieve convergence on key issues.
The next round of CECA negotiations between India and Australia is likely to be held in November in India.
In June, Business Standard reported that Australia is pushing to conclude CECA negotiations with India in the next six to seven months as the country’s federal elections are scheduled for May 2025.
The proposed comprehensive trade agreement is expected to cover five major areas, including goods, services, digital trade, government procurement and product-specific rules under the rules of origin chapter. Both sides have expressed interest in including new areas in comprehensive trade agreements, such as competition policy, micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), gender, innovation, agricultural technology, critical minerals and sports.
Negotiations on the ECSC began in February 2023, almost two months after the signing of the interim trade agreement, also known as the Economic and Trade Cooperation Agreement (ECTA). Both countries had signed the ECTA in April 2022, which came into force later in the year, starting from 29 December.
First published: August 25, 2024 | 15:09 IS
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