India, Australia set to seal deal on uranium sale - Livemint

Prime Minister Tony Abbott told Australia’s parliament he hoped to sign an agreement that will enable uranium sales to India. Photo: AFP

Canberra/New Delhi: India and Australia are set to seal a deal on Friday that will see Australia sell uranium to Asia’s third largest economy, a and put commercial ties on a firmer footing.

“I am hoping to sign a nuclear cooperation agreement that will enable uranium sales by Australia to India,” Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott told Parliament in Canberra on Wednesday before setting off for his two-day India visit that will start on Thursday.

Talks on the sale pact have been underway since Australia, which has about 40% of the world’s known uranium reserves but no nuclear power plants, lifted a long-standing ban on selling the uranium to power-starved India in 2012.

India operates 20 atomic reactors with a capacity of 4,780 MW, or 2% of its total power capacity, according to the Nuclear Power Corp. of India Ltd .

The Australian government under then Labor party prime minister Kevin Rudd had refused to sell nuclear material to India because it had not signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT).

But his successor Julia Gillard , also from the Labor party, worked with her colleagues to overturn the embargo.

When asked what steps had been taken to ensure there were appropriate safeguards, trade minister Andrew Robb said that the government had satisfied itself that “the steps are in place”.

“The negotiations and work that’s gone on between authorities in India and Australia have gone on for some years to develop a bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement, which meets international requirements and we are satisfied, our officials are satisfied, that all requirements have been met,” Robb told ABC Radio.

In New Delhi, foreign ministry official Sanjay Bhattacharya said both sides have had five rounds of talks since 2012 and discussions for concluding the pact “have been very productive”. He declined to give further details.

India has refused to sign the nuclear NPT, arguing it is discriminatory and flawed in allowing only countries which had tested nuclear weapons before 1967 to legally possess them.

Besides export of resources like uranium and coal, which forms one of the largest items of export from Australia to India, besides gold, zinc, copper and diamonds, the two countries would also be looking at cooperation in the areas of education, science and technology, Bhattacharya said.

Australia is looking to collaborate with India in water resources management as well as India’s Ganges river cleaning project, Bhattacharya said.

Imparting skills and cutting-edge technologies as well as cleaning the river Ganges are issues close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi , who came to power following the April-May Lok Sabha elections.

“The shift of gravity towards Asia has brought India and Australia relations into closer focus,” Bhattacharya told reporters in New Delhi.

“We have seen that India has grown as a factor in Australian analysis and policy making. There is also a growing recognition of the complementarities in our partnership for us. Australia is major supplier of resources, particularly energy, necessary for our development needs. Both sides seek to further strengthen and add substance to our strategic partnership and develop an enduring partnership,” the official said.

Both countries elevated their ties to a strategic partnership in 2009 during a visit to India by Rudd. The two countries, who are members of many groupings like East Asia Summit, G-20 or Group of Twenty developed and developing economies and Indian Ocean Rim Association, which groups countries bordering the Indian Ocean, have strong defence linkages as well, Bhattacharya said. He listed bilateral exercises, training and ship building as areas to consolidate defence ties.

Abbott, who will first stop in Mumbai on Thursday, is accompanied by a major trade delegation comprising 30 representatives from the education, mining and financial sectors.

Indian businesses have invested $10 billion in Australia in the past several years and many more are in the pipeline, Bhattacharya said.

Besides bilateral issues, Abbott is to discuss the upcoming G-20 Summit that Australia will be hosting in November.

Modi is expected to travel to Brisbane for the meeting in November, which will also include a bilateral component.

This will make Modi the first prime minister to travel to Australia for a bilateral visit since Rajiv Gandhi in 1986.