Australia hopes to complete an agreement with India that will expand market access for Australian exporters by the end of the calendar year and before next year’s Indian election, Agriculture Minister Murray Watt said.

Watt and a delegation of agribusiness representatives visited India earlier this month to discuss improving market access for Australian producers under a proposed Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement, which would expand the partial free trade pact that came into effect at the end of last year.

“We are starting to see Australian producers take advantage of those opportunities under the existing deal,” Watt said in an interview. “But we are in the process of negotiating what we hope will be a broader deal.”

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May visited Sydney, where he held discussions with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and hailed the fast-growing Indian diaspora in Australia for the improving bilateral relations.

Other points:

• Australia is planning to continue talks with the European Union on a free-trade deal in August. While Canberra remains open to continuing negotiations, their EU counterparts are only open “to a point.” Issues to be resolved include access for some Australian agricultural exports, in particular beef.
• Australia is “very hopeful” China’s curbs on barley will be lifted in August. Canberra has agreed to suspend a World Trade Organization case for a fourth month while Beijing reviews the restrictions.

China imposed trade sanctions on a range of Australian goods in 2020 following a call by then-Prime Minister Scott Morrison for an international investigation into the origins of Covid-19. Relations between the countries improved following the election of Albanese’s Labor government in May 2022.