Saurabh Gupta | 07 Nov, 2009
This is time to fill the supply-demand gap between India and Australia, says Indo-Australian experts during a panel discussion in the national capital on Friday.

Peter Linford, Senior Trade and Investment Commissioner South Asia and Minister Commercial Australian High Commission, said that the Australian government has made huge efforts in recent years to promote bilateral relations between the two countries, which is evident from the several visits of Australian leaders to India in the past one year.

He stressed on bridging the gap in the understanding of each other among the people of the two countries. He lauded the efforts of the Indian government in handling the current economic crisis and at the same time sustaining a high economic growth.

He said that a free trade agreement between the two countries was under study and the two sides were working to find a common ground and iron out the differences in the opinions. He said that India emerged as the 6th largest trade partner of Australia in 2008, compared to its 8th position the previous year.

He termed the  relationship between the two countries as "obvious, vital and valuable".  

CII has organized a panel discussion titled "Evolving Australia-India Relations – Moving Beyond Cricket" on 6 November preceding the official visit of Australian Prime Minister to India.

The panelists included Sanjay Baru, Consulting Editor and Editor designate Business Standard, Peter Linford, Senior Trade and Investment Commissioner South Asia and Minister Commercial Australian High Commission, V K Mathur, Senior Member CII and Chairman and Managing Director Inapex Ltd, Kulbhushan Trehan, Advisor Thiess India Ltd and Prof R Sadananda, Visiting Fellow (School of Computer Science and Engineering) University of South Wales Australia.

Addressing the panel discussion, Sanjay Baru pointed that the two countries did not pay adequate attention in the past to promote political and strategic relationship, which remained neglected for a long time.

He said that with increased economic cooperation, "convergence of political and economic interests" has emerged between the two countries.

The important areas of cooperation that have surfaced recently are building of 'East Asian Community' on the pattern of European Community, Indian Ocean relations and Islamic terrorism, Baru added.

V K Mathur said that India and Australia enjoy very friendly relationship and that there did not exist any political dispute that could obstruct the further growth in bilateral relations. He laid stress on cooperation in promoting education, tourism and aviation services to realize huge potential of business between the two countries.

Trehan and Sadananda asked to deepen the relations through increased cooperation in the fields like mining, infrastructure, tourism, skill development and education. Trehan said that the two countries should now adopt the concept of 'move from cost to value'.