India and Australia to boost critical mineral trade amid strengthening of ties

Two countries are aiming to complete a comprehensive trade deal by the end of 2023

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, right, receives Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, in New Delhi. AFP

India and Australia are aiming to expand trade in critical minerals, to help them achieve their goals in reducing carbon emissions, as the two countries seek a broad trade pact.

India's Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said on Saturday that his country was short of critical minerals.

"Australia has a large reserve of critical minerals that go into [electric vehicle] batteries, which isn't fully processed or manufactured presently," he told a news conference after meeting Australia's Trade and Tourism Minister, Don Farrell.

Critical minerals, along with space technology and opportunities in the digital sector, will be key areas of the planned deal, Mr Farrell said.

The meeting followed a summit in New Delhi on Friday between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Australian counterpart, Anthony Albanese.

India and Australia hope to complete by year's end an ambitious, comprehensive trade deal that has been stuck in negotiations for more than a decade.

It would expand on a free trade deal the two signed last year, the first between India and a developed country in a decade. The Economic Co-operation and Trade Agreement came into effect in December, removing duties on 96 per cent of Indian exports to Australia and 85 per cent of Australian exports to India.