Chennai: Tamil Nadu is one of the four priority south Indian States for increased Australian engagement and others are Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, Australian High Commissioner to India Harinder Sidhu has said.
Launching a roadmap for deepening Australia-India economic ties over the next two decades at the IIT (M) Research Park here on Tuesday, she said the report: An India Economic Strategy to 2035: Navigating from Potential to Delivery, was commissioned by the Australian government and it was authored by Peter Varghese, a former High Commissioner to India. She highlighted the report’s recommendation to deepen the Australia-India research and innovation partnership, and noted that TN provided a strong base for further growth. This included 83 active institutional partnerships between Australian and Tamil Nadu universities, 21 Australia-India Strategic Research Fund (AISRF) grants, and two centres of excellence at IIT Madras (Deakin and Swinburne).
The Australian government has proposed to engage with Tamil Nadu at the upcoming Global Investors’ Meet, slated for January 23-24, here, to pursue sectoral opportunities in education, road safety technology, urban infrastructure, fisheries and agribusiness.
The report presents an independent evaluation of India’s potential to become one of Australia’s top trade partners, examining ways and business and government can better connect to share experience of regulatory change and support India’s reform agenda. At the core of the India Economic Strategy is a ‘sectors and states’ framework that identifies ten sectors where Australia’s competitive advantages match India’s needs, and ten states in India where Australian businesses should focus their efforts.
