Former Australian PM Tony Abbott to visit India to progress Indo-Australian Trade Partnership

Tony Abbott, the former Prime Minister of Australia will be visiting India in early August 2021 to progress the Indo-Australian economic and trade partnership under the comprehensive strategic partnership. The news was shared by the Australian Minister for Education and Youth, Dan Tehan.

In a statement, Dan Tehan said that the visit will be an opportunity to progress the ambitious agenda of the Australian Government to energize and expand the Australian bilateral trade and investment relationship with India.

He further added that Tony Abbott will also be meeting the ministers and business leaders during his visit to India.

Ex-Australian PM Tony Abbott (in file pic) will travel to India in early August to progress our significant economic and trade relationship under the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. He will meet Indian ministers and business leaders: Australian Minister for Dan Tehan pic.twitter.com/VIrebEoQEA

— ANI (@ANI) July 31, 2021

India-Australia bilateral ties: Partnership and agreements

• India and Australia, earlier, had elevated their bilateral ties to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (CSP). They had signed seven agreements including on mining and defence during a virtual summit between Prime Minister Modi and his Australian counterpart Scott Morrison.

• Both the countries have also announced a shared vision for maritime cooperation in Indo-pacific to harness the opportunities and meet challenges together as Comprehensive Strategic Partners.

• India and Australia agreed to continue to broaden and deepen the defence cooperation by enhancing the scope and the complexity of their military exercises as well as engagement activities for developing new ways to address the shared security challenges.

• Framework arrangements have been signed on Cyber and Cyber-Enabled Critical Technology Cooperation. An MoU on cooperation in the field of mining and processing of critical and strategic minerals has also been signed.

Tony Abbott’s relations with India:

The former Prime Minister of Australia Tony Abbott is known to have developed a working relationship with Prime Minister Modi before he was ousted from the position of PM by Malcolm Turnbull in 2015.

However, despite Abbott’s past hopes of negotiating a free trade agreement between India and Australia as soon as possible, that never happened. Tony Abbott is currently an adviser to the British Government’s Board of Trade.