Aus asked to put more efforts in trade ties with India

Cricket rivalry between Australia and India should not deter trade ties between them, a think tank here today asked Canberra to diversify its economic relationship with the world's largest emerging market.
"The main challenge is to diversify and synergise other complementaries that exist between the two economies," a report made by the former Australian Trade Commissioner to India Michael Moignard said.
The report published by Australia India Institute's occasional paper pointed out that India's urban infrastructure crisis, growing need for financial services products, ageing population could be tapped, as it provide greater potential for investments between the two countries.
"It is a very competitive situation and India has a lot of choice. It is not simply that India would be necessarily looking to Australia for all these solutions, but we can provide that to them and I think we need to be able to show the innovation of our product and the competitive nature of our pricing," report said.

Arguing that Australia's mineral wealth will not last forever, report said the main challenge is to diversify and synergise other complementaries that exist between the two economies.
"Australia must position itself as a nation whose skills and resources can facilitate India's growth. Instead of hitting each other for six on the cricket field, Australia and India should team up to hit India's growth obstacles and development challenges out of the oval," it said.

By helping India realise its development goals, Australian companies can expand their customer base, with obvious benefits for both countries, it added.
"Looking beyond the figures, both trade and investment suffer from lack of diversification in the relationship. Trade from Australia is highly commodity driven, with exports dominated by coal, gold, copper and other industrial inputs," he said.

Likewise, from the Indian point of view, exports to Australia are limited to some manufactures, chemicals, and crafts and textiles.
The only question is whether, as two great democracies, we can rise above the day-to-day exigencies of politics, and seize the future that beckons us towards partnership for prosperity, it said.
The report further noted that Australian companies currently doing business in India in terms of exports stood at over 2000 while only 150 Australian major had significant presence in India.
It is vital to get smaller companies to enter Indian market for booming long-term economic relationship, the report suggested.