India-Australia trade deal to boost bilateral ties, says Tony Abbott

Former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Thursday said the recently-implemented trade deal between India and Australia would boost economic and bilateral ties between both nations.

“The existing FTA is good… can it be further developed? Yes, it can (be) and my understanding is that the trade ministers (of both the countries) will start discussions in coming days (on expanding the scope of the existing trade deal),” he said at a media briefing, adding that businesses on both sides should formulate strategies to take advantage of the deal.

The interim trade deal between both nations was signed in April last year but kicked in from 29 December. Both sides have now started working towards a comprehensive trade deal.

Abbott is here in India for the multilateral conference Raisina Dialogue.

“I will make it my personal mission… to make India a much more important strategic partner of Australia than China,” he said. In recent times, he said it was observed that China is using trade as a weapon against Australia and India would never do anything like that.

With regard to a question on Adani group, and allegations by Hindenburg Research, Abbott said that he has not seen the details of the report and “assume if there is anything in them, the relevant corporate regulators will do their job”.

“As far as I am concerned I regard Adani as a benefactor to Australia and I admire his success in building up a very large diverse business empire from scratch,” said.

With inputs from PTI