Australia and India reached a deal on Thursday, July 9th, to export Australian uranium to India for use in the nuclear energy industry.
** Australia has agreed to export uranium for India's nuclear energy industry
** India and Australia said the uranium sale is "for exclusively peaceful purposes"
Both sides agreed to deepen cooperation in renewables, critical minerals and green hydrogen.
India has long eyed Australia's uranium reserves to help meet a target of 100 gigawatts of nuclear energy capacity by 2047, while Australia is looking to diversify trade beyond its reliance on China, its top partner.
Modi with his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese in Melbourne
Though both nations agreed to a nuclear cooperation pact in 2014, uranium exports have been limited over concerns about ensuring nuclear fuel is used solely for peaceful purposes, such as energy generation.
PM said on Thursday India's relationship with Australia presented "historic opportunities" for both countries to cooperate across several areas.
Australia's technology, capital and resources could help accelerate India's energy transition, Modi said. He also signalled possible cooperation in low-carbon aluminium projects.
"We have historic opportunities to cooperate in this field," Modi said, as he urged Australia's business community to invest long-term in India's road, port, rail and urban infrastructure projects.
"Australia and India are close partners and even closer friends," Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters in Melbourne on Thursday, after finalising the deal with visiting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
"The arrangement facilitates Australian uranium exports to India to help increase the share of non-fossil fuel power capacity, providing an additional market for the Australian resources sector."
"India provides a safe, stable and sustainable growth option for your funds," PM Modi said.
Australia's largest pension fund, AustralianSuper, said on Thursday it would invest a further A$500 million ($347 million) in India's National Investment and Infrastructure Fund.
Modi also said Australia's technology, capital and resources could help accelerate India's energy transition and signalled possible cooperation in low-carbon aluminium projects.
"India provides a safe, stable and sustainable growth option for your funds," he said.
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| Modi with Governor General of Australia Sam Mostyn |
Living bridge'
After meeting Modi at the business event, Albanese called the Indian leader a "living bridge" between Australia and India.
Modi's vision had helped reshape the roadmap for Australia's economic engagement with India, he said.
India is Australia's fifth-largest trading partner after China, Japan, the U.S. and South Korea, while around 1 million people in Australia claim Indian ancestry, out of a population of 28 million.
Modi arrived in Australia after visiting Indonesia, where he signed a raft of deals on agriculture and defence, including for the BrahMos cruise missile system. He will leave for New Zealand on Friday afternoon before returning to India.
The leaders addressed a community event of Indian expatriates in Melbourne on Thursday.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese remarked that the energy felt at the reception, which was reportedly attended by tens of thousands of people from the Indian diaspora, "defines the Australia-India partnership".
"Our Indian community has contributed so much to the story of modern Australia. And it's made our country a better place. Tonight we celebrated the special relationship between Australia and India," Albanese wrote on X.
"We recognise that our partnership must evolve to meet changing strategic circumstances, and commit to an acceleration in our advanced, integrated, and top-tier defense and security partnership," the text of the declaration by Modi and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese read.
It added that the two countries recognized a long-term vision of defense and security collaboration to enhance collective strength.
"This collaboration will contribute to both countries’ security and make an important contribution to regional peace and security," the joint statement said.
India and Australia also agreed to strengthen supply chains for critical minerals.
The two countries announced that they would build a "temporary space tracking terminal" on Australia's Cocos Keeling Islands in the Indian Ocean to support Indian space flight projects.
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