CECA must respect India's sensitivities on agri: Australia

Australia's Trade Minister Andrew Robb today said the comprehensive economic cooperation pact must respect India's sensitivities on its farm sector.
The negotiations between India and Australia on the proposed Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) had earlier hit a roadblock on the sensitive issue of agriculture, as Australia had been demanding greater access into the Indian markets by way of lower tariffs and duty-free access for some of its dairy products.
However, for India, this translated into allowing cheaper imports of Australian dairy products that might impact millions employed in the sector.
"India still has 600 million people living on USD 2 a day. Many of them are involved in agriculture. There are sensitivities in certain areas which any such agreement has to respect and has to help that issue not hinder it. So its not like we are doing a deal with a fully developed country, although India is on the way there," Robb told reporters here.

Pointing out that the 2015-end deadline was "difficult but doable", Robb said both nations were on track to achieve the objective of Prime Ministers Tony Abbott and Narendra Modi to conclude a CECA by the end of 2015.
"We had a target -- the end of this year. We have got a lot of work still to do, but we are still on track to complete that by the end of this year, as we are with the nuclear cooperation agreement," he said.

Australia and India had signed a civil nuclear agreement in September last year to allow Canberra to supply uranium to the energy-starved country.

Our processes for bringing the Nuclear Cooperation Agreement into force before the end of 2015 are on track but the ratification (of the same by Australian Parliament) has not taken place, Robb said.
He further said, "Relationship between India Australia has been neglected since the last 15-20 years...When we came to office 2 years ago we were committed to reignite the relationship."
He mentioned that the thrust of the CECA deal will overwhelmingly or principally be on services.
PM Modi said what he would like from CECA is to get access to our expertise in services to help India realise its full potential, Robb said.

Asserting that 75 per cent of Australia's economy or GDP came from services, the Minister said the services could include engineering, health, education, environment, project management, construction, financial, among others.
Citing the example of Australia's free trade pact with China inked earlier, he said the CECA does require in many cases the Australian businesses, large and small to establish their presence in the country with which it is inked.
India is Australia's 12th largest trading partner with a two-way trade worth around 15 billion Australian Dollars. It is also Australia's seventh largest export market.
On Rio Tinto's India projects being stuck, Robb said: "One of the projects has not been resolved but they have now got active engagement. But there are other projects that Rio Tinto is exploring.