Diplomatist Magazine Diplomatist March 2019 | Page 26

SPECIAL REPORT
Australia and India:
Navigating from potential to delivery
By Peter Varghese AO*
I
n November 2018, Australian Prime
Minister Scott Morrison announced
the Government’s endorsement of an
independent report I was commissioned to
produce on an India economic strategy.
The report – An India Economic Strategy
to 2035: Navigating from potential to delivery
– is the most detailed analysis so far of the
complementarities of the Australian and Indian
economies over the next two decades. The
report makes the case for a strategic investment
in the Australia-India relationship led at the
highest levels of the Australian Government.
It charts a course to a deeper economic
partnership between Australia and India: indeed
to bring India into the fi rst tier of Australia’s
economic and strategic relationships. The key
analytical conclusion of the report is that there
is no other single market that provides more
growth opportunities for Australia than India.
The report sets a target to treble Australian
exports to India and increase tenfold Australian
investment in India by 2035. The core of the
economic strategy is “sectors and states”.
As the Indian economy grows, the scope for
partnership will only expand. It is already the
26 • Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Diplomatist • Vol 7 • Issue 3 • March 2019, Noida
third largest economy in the world (in PPP
terms), and the report identifies 10 sectors
where Indian demand and Australian supply
can come into better balance. These are divided
into a fl agship sector (education), three lead
sectors (agribusiness, resources and tourism)
and six promising sectors (energy, health care,
fi nancial services, infrastructure, sport, science
and innovation). Education is identified as
the fl agship sector of the future because of a
combination of Australian expertise, the scale
of India's education defi cit and the way in which
demand for education and training weaves its
way through virtually every sector of the Indian
economy.
Education involves so much more than
increasing the number of Indian students
coming to Australia. It also signals engagement,
collaboration, a responsiveness to the priorities
of India and a bridge between our two
communities. Australia’s education relationship
with India needs to focus on a message
of quality, on postgraduate and research
collaboration, on science and innovation, on
forging partnerships to deliver cost eff ective
vocational education in India and partnering