August 27, 2024: India and Australia recently held the 10th round of negotiations for their Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) from August 19 to 22, 2024, in Sydney. The discussions focused on five key areas: goods, services, digital trade, government procurement, and rules of origin (ROO).

The Hindu Businessline reports that the meeting saw intensive discussions aimed at understanding each other’s proposals and identifying ways to converge on remaining issues. Both sides reviewed progress on negotiations and prepared for the next round, scheduled to take place in New Delhi in November 2024. Inter-sessional virtual meetings will be held to advance discussions in the interim.

August 13 2024: AFTINET has submitted its response to the Discussion Paper for the Roadmap for Australia’s Economic Engagement with India. Our short submission updates our previous longer submission to the negotiations for a comprehensive trade agreement with India. It emphasises the need for the Roadmap to align with Australia’s commitments to fair trade principles, human rights, and environmental sustainability.

Consultations for the Australian Government’s new roadmap have been launched to build on existing economic initiatives with India and explore new options as part of the “Future Made in Australia” initiative. India is currently our fourth-largest export market.

January 25, 2023: The India-Australia Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (AI-CECA) negotiations began  in late January 2023 . The interim agreement, which was negotiated by the previous government, mainly dealt with trade in goods and services, and movement of temporary workers. The comprehensive negotiations will deal with issues like labour rights, environmental standards, digital trade, intellectual property and government procurement.

The AFTINET submission to DFAT negotiators is here. 

August 19, 2022: The interim IACEPA was negotiated under the previous government in haste and without consultation with civil society organisations.. Some of its provisions are not consistent with the current government’s policy. The interim agreement contains only 14 chapters out of a possible 20 or 30 chapters and commits to negotiations for a comprehensive agreement which would include further chapters.

AFTINET's  submission recommends that those provisions in the interim agreement on industry policy, trade in services and temporary movement of natural people and which are inconsistent with government policy be removed before ratification.

August 8, 2022: Labor has a policy for a more transparent public and parliamentary process for future trade agreements. See our critique of the current process here and Labor policy here.

However the government  is proceeding with the  very limited Joint Standing Committee on Treaties (JSCOT) review process for the Indian and UK agreements which were signed by the previous government before the election. AFTINET will raise the process issues in our submission.

March 21, 2023: The Times of India has reported that India issued termination notices to 68 countries for Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) with a request to renegotiate on the basis of the model agreement formulated in 2015.

These 68 BITs were based on a 1993 model which had been amended in 2003. Alarmed at actions taken against it using the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provision in these BITs, the Indian government developed a new model for investment treaties in 2015. India has a further six BITs under the old model, but these are not yet open for a notice of termination. There are two BITs negotiated since 2015, on the new model, and these are in force.

April 11, 2022: The interim Australia-India Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (AIECTA) was announced on April 1 to selected media and the good news about increased agricultural exports was in the  media before the text was signed and publicly released late on April 2.  See AFTINET’s initial media release which criticised the secrecy of the process and the lack of parliamentary scrutiny until after the election.

22 March 2022: Ahead of a long-anticipated interim trade agreement between Australia and India, AFTINET Convener Dr Patricia Ranald has warned of the risks of rushing through an ‘early harvest’ agreement on ABC Radio National Drive. The predicted agreement was not announced at the meeting yesterday between Prime Ministers Morrison and Modi.

Dr Ranald warned that “early harvest agreements really mean that they are trying to cobble something together that they can easily agree with. If it is an early harvest agreement, it may not be terribly significant in trade terms.”

July 28, 2020: Following a recent meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and an assessment of the outcomes of all India’s free trade agreements by the Commerce & Industry and Finance Ministries, the Indian government has created four working groups to develop a new trade strategy to boost foreign investment and exports, an official said to the Economic Times.