Australia seeks Indian investment in Mining industry

Kolkata, Nov 22 (UNI) Recognising India's huge potential to becoming an economic powerhouse, the Australian government has offered joint venture agreements in mines and mineral industries in a big way.

Extending the formal offer to a number of major Indian players in mining like Coal India, Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL) and the Eastern CoalFields Limited (ECL) and others, Australian Mininig Industry and Tourism Minister Ian Macfarlance here today said he had already held "fruitful" discussions with the Chairmen of all the three public sector units and offered them latest mining and safety equipment besides the state-of-the-art mining technology for greater excavation.

This could be done only through joint ventures with both Indian and Australian companies holding equity participations.

This apart, the Auatralian Minister said during his five-day visit to the country he had held several rounds of discussions with a number of major private and public sector steel making units, including Bhusan Steel, Tata Steel and Vizag Steel, to discuss the possibility of their acquisition of some coal mines in Queensland in Southern Australia.

He, however, refused to disclose the "final outcome" of his meetings with the leaders of Indian Mining and Iron and Steel industries, but said he was very optimistic since a number of medium sized Indian companies like Gujarat NRE had already come and invested about 60 million Australian dollars in acquiring two mines and importing its reserves back to India.

Referring to the possibilities of forming joint venture agreements with more Indian companies in several other sectors, Mr Macfarlance said keeping in view the huge potential of increasing the bilateral trade volume between the two countries presently standing at 4.5 billion dollars annually, both governments had stressed on more such agreements in the spheres of education, tourism, information technology, manufacturing and service.

Earlier, speaking at a seminar on "Investment opportunities in Australian mineral resources", Mr Macfarlance gave a detailed account of his country's huge reserves of various minerals, including high quality coal, iron ore, manganese and uranium, besides oil and natural gas.

Recently the Australian government had invested nearly one billion dollars for further excavation of oil and natural gas and for betterment of infrastructural facilities in several mining sectors, the Minister informed.

He also underscored the country's great potential in exporting uncut diamond not only to India but to several other countries.

Among others Western Auastralian State Minister Simon Johnson said his region would be in a position to supply the latest mining technology and safety equipment to the Indian mining industry for greater excavation in both open cast and underground mines. UNI ABA SJC AB 1734