It will be a second visit to India since September last year and reflects the importance of being attached by the two countries to complete the Bilateral Comprehensive Cooperation Agreement (CECA) after a temporary agreement.

The Australian Minister of Commerce and Tehan will travel to India this week for talks with his colleague Piyush to encourage efforts to complete the temporary trade agreement amid fears on the Indian side to open the agricultural sector and milk.

It will be a second visit to India since September last year and reflects the importance of being attached by the two countries to complete the Bilateral Comprehensive Cooperation Agreement (CECA) after a temporary agreement. Tehan will hold talks with goyal in New Delhi on February 10.

Both parties previously said they intended to conclude the temporary trade agreement on December 202 but could not hold the timeline for various reasons, people who were familiar with the problem.

“The Tehan minister is committed to concluding the full CECA at the end of the year and his second visit in five months shows his personal commitment to provide successful results,” the Australian High Commissioner Barry O’Farrell said on Tuesday.

“Negotiators explore results for temporary agreements, including goods and services, energy and resources, logistics and transportation, standards, origin of origin, and sanitation and phytosanitary steps (SPS),” he said.

Negotiators of the two countries “see the results for the Temporary Agreement in the context of cover negotiations for full CECA at the end of 2022”, O’Farrell added.

Two Indian officials with direct knowledge of this problem, requesting anonymity, say the two countries are committed to quick negotiations on CECA and talks progress in that direction.

“Efforts to temporary agreements immediately to liberalize and deepen bilateral trade in goods and services, followed by full CECA, where negotiations are expected to be concluded at the end of 2022,” said one of them.

The second official said India would protect the agricultural sector, milk and fisheries while concluding multilateral or bilateral trade transactions. For developing and densely populated countries such as India, poor food security is very important, including the protection of the agricultural and agricultural sectors, he said.

India’s commitment to protect the agricultural sector was reflected in the final minutes of the prime minister in November 2019 to get out of the regional comprehensive economic partnership (RCEP) even though it was one of the largest trading blocks, the second official said.

India walked out of RECP because the arrested agreement could flood the domestic market with Chinese goods, and cheap import from derivatives of milk from Australia and New Zealand would harm the Indian milk industry, he added.

RCEP covers almost 30% of the global population, contributed $ 25.8 trillion or around 30% of global GDP, and contributed $ 12.7 trillion or a little more than a quarter of the global trade of goods and services. The members are 10 ASEAN countries, and Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.

However, O’Farrell said Australia considers CECA as “important for India and Australia to provide their vision of safe and prosperous Indo-Pacific”. Both parties support the economic openness and enforce the rules-based trading system and “we realize that a strong economy provides opportunities for our citizens”, he added.

Indian officials said concerns about negotiations about trade agreements with Australia involving imports of milk and agriculture products was not true. “Negotiations are fully focused on trading goods that are mutually beneficial, and India has not made an offer at all in the [Dairy or Agriculture] sector to Australia,” an official said.

He reacted to tweets by spokesman Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) Rakesh Tikait said the government would sign an agreement with Australia which would enable milk imports on ₹ 20-22 per liter, much lower than the retail price of milk produced locally, around ₹ error 50-55 per liter.

Responding to these tweets, the Minister of Compassion for Fisheries, Livestock and Dairy Parshottam Rupala also said this was a rumor. “There is no proposal for any task concession about importing milk products to India with Australia which is being considered by the livestock and cooling department,” he said.