Australia hopes to do more trade with India to offset China trade issues

New Delhi: Australia is planning to rely on India’s middle class to overcome the economic damage it is facing from Covid 19 and worsening relations with China.

Given India’s 85 million middle-to-high income population, which is three times Australia’s total population, Australia hopes to cash in on education, wine and tourism, Bloomberg reports.

Bilateral trade, according to the report, is likely to double around A$60 billion over the next five years.

But it is still only a “sliver of Australia’s” bilateral trade of A$280 billion with China.

Indicating changes, India’s imports of Australian goods rose to US$12.3 billion, up 48% from a year ago between April and October.

Ajay Sahai, director general, Federation of Indian Export Organisations said that Coal, copper, aluminium, cobalt will see a sizable jump alongside rise in wine imports.

As Indian community forms about 3 per cent of Australian population, Australia established the Centre for Australia-India Relations in 2022.

The move is aimed at promoting “policy dialog and administer scholarship and fellowship programs among other things”, according to the report.

Australia’s education market faced huge drop, especially after China’s strict observance of Covid-zero strategy that made Chinese students to return to Australian campuses.

China hopes to focus on luring more Indian students to Australian campuses as there is surge of Indian students to study in the nation.

Australia hopes to entice India’s burgeoning middle class to bolster its tourism sector and India has already become the second-largest source country of visitors after New Zealand, replacing China.