High Commissioner's remarks at the Australia session of the CII Partnership Summit
(check against delivery) 17 December 2020
Namaskar
I am delighted to join the CII Partnership Summit 2020 for this special Australia session.
In a particularly tough year, it can be easy to focus on the challenges we’ve faced.
Certainly, responding to the COVID-19 pandemic has been the biggest. Its impacts on our countries, communities, commerce have been unprecedented and profound.
Our economies have been hit for six—with both Australia and India recording economic contractions after years of uninterrupted growth.
And it has all taken place against a backdrop of increasing geostrategic competition in our Indo-Pacific neighbourhood.
We’re seeing pressure on the global rules, norms and institutions which underpin our nations’ security, stability and prosperity.
In the face of these challenges, Australia’s message is clear.
We believe we need to do everything possible to give our businesses, economies, and the Indo-Pacific region at large, the maximum opportunity to trade, invest and recover.
We must liberalise, integrate, collaborate and innovate.
Despite the challenges we all face, we can and should be optimistic about the future – about new opportunities and about our partnerships.
In signing a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in June, Prime Ministers Modi and Morrison set us all an ambitious task to strengthen the foundations of our bilateral relationship.
Globally, and within our region, the Australian and Indian Governments are working closer than ever.
- Through the Quad, where (together with the US and Japan) we are deepening strategic cooperation and stand in firm agreement on the importance of strengthening the resilience of regional supply chains, key cyber enabled systems and critical infrastructure;
- Through the United Nations, where we are supporting India’s membership of the Security Council; and
- Through the G20, where we are working together to support strong, sustainable, and balanced growth outcomes.
At a bilateral level, we’re increasing trade and investment with India.
We’ve implemented 26 practical initiatives under the Government’s the India economic strategy.
Earlier this year, our Trade Tourism and Investment Minister led a successful Australia India Business Exchange trade mission to India.
Our new diplomatic mission in Kolkata is playing a crucial role in fostering closer business ties.
And we’ve extended the Australia-India Strategic Research Fund, to help build links between our education and research institutions.
Importantly, our economic relationship is diversified and complementary – ensuring a broad range of Australian and Indian businesses benefit.
Australian businesses are providing India with high quality goods and growth-enabling services, including raw materials to fuel India’s manufacturing sector and expertise in mining services and technology in support of Prime Minister Modi’s ‘self-reliant’ mission.
There are great synergies to be found in providing stable and expanding supplies of critical minerals and rare earths, particularly with India’s ambitions to boost the number of electric vehicles on its roads, and renewable energy powering Indian industry and homes.
Under a new agreement on cyber and cyber-enabled technologies, we are collaborating closely to enhance digital trade, harness critical technology opportunities and address cyber security challenges.
I am pleased that large Australian companies including ANZ, Telstra, and Kmart Australia Sourcing Services have established innovation and capability centres in Bengaluru. We look forward to working with India to be global technology shapers.
We’re also cooperating in the health sector, and I again want to recognise the crucial role Indian companies will play in the global roll-out of COVID-19 vaccines.
AustralianSuper, our largest superannuation fund, is investing USD 250 million as part of an agreement with the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund of India, with co-investment rights of up to USD 750 million in future opportunities.
In the Infrastructure sector, Australia’s Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets is the largest foreign investor in toll roads in India and retains a strong appetite to do more.
Australia’s education institutions continue to their engagement with India.
We look forward to hearing from Deakin University today about some of the opportunities that exist for bilateral engagement in the higher education sector.
We want to strengthen our alliance in space, and we welcome reforms that will open up India’s space sector to commercial opportunities on end-to-end space missions.
And there is scope to boost our partnership in the circular economy, to make our communities and economies more sustainable.
I’ve mentioned these examples to highlight the breadth and depth of our economic relationship and the numerous and diverse opportunities available to Australian and Indian businesses and organisations.
Collaboration and innovation are among the greatest strengths of our Australia-India partnership. It’s a partnership which is strong—and we are working it hard together.
It’s an effort I am sure will deliver greater wins, stronger growth and a faster recovery for both countries.
I look forward to hearing from today’s panellists, who represent a wide range of important sectors.
I encourage you all to use this session to share insights, build connections and help us build on the foundation laid to date.
Obviously, I am also very much looking forward to the launch of CII’s Australia Economic Strategy tomorrow and I congratulate, in advance, Ambassador Anil Wadhwa for his energy, efforts and patience.
The Australian Economic Strategy is validation of the promise both countries recognise in our economic relationship—and a reflection of the spirit of partnership which underpins Australia’s relationship with India.
At the end of a year of major challenges—where citizens, companies and countries appreciated, more than ever before, the value of trusted and reliable friends—I remain incredible optimistic about the years ahead for our two nations.