Representatives of the Australian Trade Commission including Forby and Peter Linford, senior trade and investment commissioner, Australian Trade Commission were present at 'Winning Business and Investment with Australia', a seminar held in Ahmedabad to focus on potential for Australian partnership with businesses in Gujarat.

According to Linford, the bilateral trade between Australia and India amount to A$ 21 billion, of which A$ 15 billion comes from the commodity sector including coal, non-monetary gold and copper. "The bilateral trade is growing at a rate of 15 per cent. From being the sixth largest export market for Australia last year, India has moved two places up to being fourth largest now and is still growing. We hope setting up offices will consolidate this in near future," he added.

In 2009-10, the Australian Trade Commission facilitated more than A$ 700 million investments from Indian into Australia in the tourism, hospitality, mining, aviation, ICT and education sectors.