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| Edited By: R N Bhaskar |Source: DNA |Updated: Mar 19, 2018, 03:35 AM IST
Mark Pierce took charge of the office of Consul General of Australia in Mumbai last month. A senior career officer with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Pierce served for three years as assistant secretary of the Department’s South and Central Asia Branch. He has served overseas as Minister-Counsellor at the Australian Embassy in Washington.
Conventionally, Australia was a place for either education or tourism. However, during the past decade, it has emerged as a country with tremendous opportunities for minerals and gas. The Adani group and GVK are among the largest investors in Australia (over $17 billion and $10 billion, respectively), both seeking to exploit its coal mines and ship them globally, including to India. Pierce spoke to R N Bhaskar about his country’s plan to further strengthen ties with India and the work underway to prepare a white paper on ‘Australia in the Asian century – towards 2025’. Excerpts from the interview:
Could you give us a bit of background on the white paper you plan bringing out?
Last year we brought out a white paper on ‘Australia in the Asian Century’. It talked about the need to build stronger and more comprehensive relationships with countries across this region. China, India, Indonesia, Japan and South Korea were identified as the initial priority countries for the development of country strategies. Consultations between Australia’s officers and those of each of the identified countries were held from April 4 2013 to May 31 to develop this strategy. Consultations were held in India as well as in Australia. The strategy will be tabled in Parliament (in Australia) and will be regularly evaluated and updated.
What are the areas you have been looking at in India lately?
Discussions are being held on the free trade agreement (FTA) and on nuclear safeguards, and on ways to broaden them to mutual benefit.
Do you think India’s interest in your country primarily relate to minerals, oil and gas?
In fact, gold, coal and copper account for almost four-fifths of our trade volume. But gas exports will pick up from next year. We also need to work on how to identify new opportunities for cooperating on areas relating to resources and infrastructure. We need to improve on people to people contact, students, tourists and direct flights. In fact, many Indians do not realise that almost 450,000 people in our country are of Indian origin or heritage. We have 54,000 Indian students enrolled in Australia, and 159,000 Indians visited Australia last year. We now have more than 100 science partnership projects with India – more than with any other country. Some of them relate to food security and energy. Notwithstanding this, we also realise that if the base is narrow, relationships remain brittle. We need to continually broaden the base.
What about culture?
We had a vibrant Oz-fest (Australia festival) in India last year, and hope to have more cultural exchanges from this September to February next year. We will be showing films holding music performances, art exhibitions and business meetings. We are trying to work out a collaboration for restoration of old films with India.
Won’t Singapore and China compete with you for attracting students from India to their respective schools?
We welcome competition, and think we have excellent strengths in education. It reinforces our attempt to tell the world that Australia is much more than cricket and kangaroos.
