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Australia to sell uranium to India to boost domestic industry
September 4, 2014, 6:42 am

Abbott will be meeting his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi and other Indian leaders during his visit [Image: pm.gov.au]

Abbott will be meeting his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi and other Indian leaders during his visit [Image: pm.gov.au]

Even as Australia announced a ban on selling uranium to Russia, the island nation is likely to ink a civil nuclear deal enabling the same with another BRICS member, India during Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s visit to New Delhi that begins Thursday.

“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 the international requirements and we are satisfied, our officials are satisfied, that all the requirements have been met,” Australian Trade Minister Andrew Robb said in Canberra earlier.

Abbott will be meeting his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi and other Indian leaders during his visit. Modi has just concluded an extensive 5-day trip to Tokyo where India and Japan failed to conclude a much-anticipated civilian nuclear deal.

In December 2011, Australia had lifted a ban on selling uranium to India, which is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Rising energy demand from the world’s most populous countries like China and India will boost Australia’s uranium industry, said Australia’s Resources and Energy Minister Gary Gray last year.

Australia has 40 per cent of the world’s known uranium reserves.

Over the next two decades India and China are set to bring 35 nuclear reactors online.

The Australian government has stressed there is a need for the industry to boost production even as demand threatens to outrun supply.

“We need industry to commit to further development of new mines to ensure uranium production meets global demand, particularly as demand is forecast to outstrip supply as early as next year,” said Gray.

Australia have placed great premium on closer ties with Asia over the last few years.

Former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has said, “Whatever else this century brings, it will bring Asia’s rise. The transformation of the Asian region into the economic powerhouse of the world is not only unstoppable, it is gathering pace.”

In 2012 the Australian government published a White Paper on ‘Australia in the Asian Century’ explaining Australia’s pivot towards growth engines like India and China.

 

TBP and Agencies