The proposed Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CEA) between India and Australia will likely be finalised this year, visiting Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Friday. “Prime Minister Modi and I discussed the strength of our economic relationship, demonstrated by the entry into force of the landmark India-Australia Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement last year,” he said, after the first India-Australia summit talks in New Delhi. Progress has been made in the summit on a migration and mobility pact that will benefit students and professionals.

An interim trade deal between the two countries kicked off in late December. The Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (ECTA) is expected to cover 90% of the bilateral trade between the two countries. India will benefit from preferential market access provided by Australia on 100% of its tariff lines. India will be offering preferential access to Australia on most of its tariff lines, including lines of export interest to Australia, which are primarily raw materials and intermediaries such as coal, mineral ores and wines.

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Australia is the 17th largest trading partner of India and India is Australia’s ninth largest trading partner. India-Australia bilateral trade for both merchandise and services was valued at $ 7.5 billion in 2021.

PM Narendra Modi said after the summit talks: “In the field of defence, we have made remarkable agreements in the last few years, including logistics support for each other’s militaries. There is also regular and useful exchange of information between our security agencies, and we discussed further strengthening this.” He also noted that mutual cooperation to develop reliable and strong global supply chains also figured in the discussions.

Albanese described his country’s relationship with India as “multifaceted” and said he was looking forward to hosting Modi in Australia for the Quad leaders’ summit in May and then returning to India in September for the G20 summit. “Prime Minister Modi and I discussed the strength of our economic relationship, demonstrated by the entry into force of the landmark India-Australia ECTA last year,” he said.

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He said it has eliminated tariffs on more than 85% of Australian goods exported to India, benefiting Indian consumers and providing cheaper inputs for Indian industry.

“I am proud of the existing cooperation between Australia and India on solar and hydrogen, two technologies that are critical to our energy transition goals and the opportunities for us to work more closely to secure critical mineral supply chains,” Albanese said. “I’m pleased that today we have exchanged terms of reference for the Australia India Solar Taskforce,” he said.

(With PTI inputs)