About the Australia-India Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement negotiations
Recent years have seen remarkable growth in the trading relationship between India and Australia, fuelled by the many complementarities between the two economies. Two-way trade in goods and services has grown in value from $13.6 billion in 2007 to $24.3 billion in 2020.
India is the world’s largest democracy and is a market of 1.3 billion people. Its youthful population, diversified economy and growth trajectory present significant opportunity for Australian business, including in education, agriculture, energy, resources, tourism, healthcare, financial services, infrastructure, science and innovation, and sport.
At the 17th India-Australia Joint Ministerial Commission meeting on 30 September 2021, then Minister Tehan and Minister Goyal formally re-launched CECA negotiations and reaffirmed their commitment to conclude a CECA, including to reach an interim agreement by December 2021 to liberalise and deepen bilateral trade in goods and services, and to conclude the negotiations on a full CECA by the end of 2022.
Australia and India launched negotiations for a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement in May 2011. There were nine rounds of negotiations before both countries decided to suspend negotiations in September 2015, pending the outcome of other multilateral regional negotiations.
In June 2020, as part of the Joint Statement on a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between India and Australia, former Prime Ministers Morrison and Modi decided to re-engage on a bilateral Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) while suitably considering earlier bilateral discussions, where a mutually agreed way forward can be found.
