India could easily notch up its overall economic growth rate by 4 percentage points from the current level if its resources sector is opened up for foreign direct investment and Australian investment along with its best mining practices and efficiency gains would come in its train.
In an interview to Business Line, the visiting Australian Minister for Resources and Energy and for Tourism, Mr. Martin Ferguson, said that India is resources-rich. “We have an improved track record of encouraging exploration which is also very attractive to foreign investment because of our non-discriminatory investment regime”.
Australia's resources-rich endowments remain highly “efficient and its productivity in terms of technology and work rules are among the best in the world”.
He said that at the ongoing International Mining and Machinery Exhibition in Kolkata in which Australia is the focus country, “one of the issues that has been raised in the conference and in private discussions including with Ministers is the purpose of trying to transfer from Australia to India our expertise, technology and skills” so that in the future India would not only export copper and coal but it will also have new export prices in terms of mineral services. A good example is the recent contract won by Australian company Thiess Leighton for contract mining where “we are certainly good at”.
Stating that India has to open its coal mining as also copper for Australian investments, Mr Ferguson said that “it is not just the investment regime but facilitating the approval process which is exhausting from the investors' view because it cost money”. The challenge of attracting investment in mining is to be met by facilitating the quicker process of approval. He reiterated that the role of the government is to create the environment for investment and then the private sector goes on developing resources. During his meeting with the Ministers of Mines, Coal and Energy “we are entering into a range of action plan with different ministries for technology, certification of approval for joint venture in India and coal mining partnership”. Mr. Ferguson also pointed out that Coal India is looking for Australian expertise in modern underground mining.
The Minister for Resources and Tourism, Australia, Mr. Martin Ferguson calls on the Minister of State for Petroleum & Natural Gas, Shri Dinsha J. Patel |
“Our companies such as Rio Tinto are interested”, he said adding that his objective in meeting the Minister of Mines and Coal here is to highlight the best mining practices of Australian companies and high productivity. Asked about Australia's policy on uranium supply to India now that the India-US Nuclear Agreement for civilian cooperation has been hammered out, Mr. Ferguson said that in the Labour Party National Conference meeting last year, there was a major argument that led to a change in policy which enabled us to actually no longer limit the number of uranium mines.
“At the moment we have got a very active industry in uranium mining—there is a huge amount of exploration and negotiation with indigenous community is under way”. But to export uranium from our mines, “we had to reaffirm our policy that we can only sell uranium to countries that are signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and also adhering to the modified protocol”, he added.
While there was some concern in India, he said, “the most important thing we did for India is to recognise the role of other countries to sell uranium to India” and that is why “we regard and I must say respect as a step forward the Indo-US Nuclear Agreement... more importantly, we respected and helped India in its efforts to buy uranium from other countries who have different policy to Australia”.
On the India-Australia free trade agreement (FTA), Mr. Ferguson said that the study would be ready by Christmas and its conclusion would “benefit both the countries” when tariff barriers go. Australia and India share “a constructive relationship. Elections may come and go. Relationships continue. Four months ago, there was a change of government in Australia but the engagement with India continued. We want to make relationship stronger”.
To a query about Australia's concern over high import duty on beverages and wines in India, he said that “State taxes are more and hope that these taxes are rationalised” because of changing preference for wines. In the meantime, “we also want to assist Indian wine industry to improve quality of product” so that the growing market opportunity would be shared by both, he added. |
