Thaindian News

Chandigarh, March 18 (IANS) Describing India as “an ideal place for bilateral trade”, a top Australian diplomat said here Wednesday that his country has the potential to meet New Delhi’s rising demand for natural resources and it would start exporting natural gas to India by 2014.
“By 2013-14, we would be in a comfortable position to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) to India,” Australian High Commissioner to India John McCarthy told reporters.

“We see India as an ideal place for bilateral trade because of its excellent economy expansion in the last few years,” he added.

He has noted that India is the sixth biggest destination of Australian exports, while Australia is the eighth biggest importer of Indian goods.

McCarthy also expressed happiness over the steady increase in the arrival of Indian students in Australia over the last few years.

“Four year ago, only 47,000 Indian students were enrolled in Australian institutes and now this figure has almost doubled. Presently over 94,000 Indian students are studying there and this figure is equivalent to the number of Indian students in the US,” he said.

Both countries have also initiated a $40-billion joint research and technology programme.

“India is the only country with which we have such programme,” McCarthy said.

He added that Australia considered Asia as a suitable place for future cooperation.

“Australia enjoys multilateral relations with Asian countries in the field of business, education, immigration and research and development. We consider Asia as an important place as 60 percent of our total exports go to the continent,” McCarthy said.