From Western Australia to India: Delhi Diaries

'India is like a kaleidoscope. Every time you turn it, you get a different perspective – enticing, different, and real."

“A vanadium miner’s inquisitive questions on Delhi’s history and spices; a space company CEO’s love for Hindi music; a suave CEO of a Western Australia (WA) innovation company ignoring his tested comfort food to relish Delhi’s quintessential naan, roti, kadhai paneer, malai kulfi and paan; a hardworking Western Australian government team busy updating itineraries and synergising companies with aspirations; a set of dedicated sectoral WhatsApp groups to keep delegates informed of venues and meeting schedules; lots of insights, photos, experience nuggets and?scrumptious offers for Bukhara (world famous restaurant in Delhi) to get to know each other better; an enthusiastic address by the Western Australian Deputy Premier and Minister for State Development, Jobs and Trade; Tourism; Commerce; Science, Roger Cook showcasing WA’s intent for its India relationship; WA seafood companies highly focused on exports, volumes, costs, and duties with India’s leading seafood companies; a passionate discussion around aligning technology and investment with leading mining and energy groups; a terrific conversation identifying specific opportunities for WA companies around India’s environment and sustainability priorities using hydrogen and critical minerals; an productive discussion between TATA Group and Perth Airport to make direct connectivity between WA and India; an investment announcement of US$9.9 million by Woodside Energy Group in India’s?greenhouse gases?recycling?firm String Bio’s technology to recycle methane; series of multisectoral roundtables and one-on-one sessions to consolidate gains across innovation & smart cities, primary industries, international education & skilled migration, energy, mining & METS and tourism followed by exchanging notes, contacts and dinner invitations; signing of industry to industry MOUs on manufacturing lithium-ion batteries components, green energy and education; a creative discussion around tourism and hospitality; and the list goes on”

In a nutshell, the energy and enthusiasm of the first leg of Western Australia’s largest ever business delegation to India was electric. Delhi’s Taj Mahal Palace’s was the setting, with mystic Mughal-themed halls and meeting rooms bringing trade and commerce to the centre of this historic visit by the State of WA. Also, a reflection of how people-to-people connections are at the centre of everything that we do.

The 110-member ’Invest and Trade’ business delegation is visiting 4 cities (Delhi, Mumbai, Visakhapatnam and Chennai) with over 80 planned events for more than 70 businesses including companies like Woodside Energy, Rio Tinto, Australian Export Grains Innovation Centre (AEGIC), Perth Airport, Hockey WA, Screenwest, Legacy Iron Ore, WA Data Science Innovation Hub, WA Universities, and several large and medium companies led by Western Australia’s?Deputy Premier?Roger Cook ?and International Education Minister David Templeman. . The size of the business delegation reflects India’s importance as an investment and trade market for WA. A dominant emotion has been of engaging with this aspirational market proactively to further deepen WA India relations.

In 2021, India was WA’s seventh largest trading partner with total trade valued at $4.6 billion, WA exported $3.2 billion of goods to India which accounted for 17 per cent of total goods traded between Australia and India.

A message reiterated by the Deputy Premier all through the first leg of this visit has been about ‘Knowing Your India’. WA is keen to engage with India’s needs and its priorities, not just in a transactional way but in a capacity-building manner.

The aim of the Delhi visit has been to consolidate government-to-government engagement, which included Ministerial meetings within Commerce & Industry, Mines and Civil Aviation, enabling an understanding of India’s dynamic and contemporary policy, political, social, and environmental landscapes. This was also facilitated by a range of activities including government and corporate meetings and site visits, industry briefings and roundtables, one-to-one business matching, and huge networking events showcasing WA’s produce and wines in the evenings.

This is the first delegation to India by an Australian State after the signing of the historic Australia India Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (AI ECTA). AI ECTA is India’s first trade deal with a developed economy in a decade and only the second in a span of eleven years. It is indicative of how Australia’s bilateral relationship with India has grown in leaps and bounds. The AI ECTA provides for competitive tariff elimination or tariff reduction on a wide range of goods and opens new services markets for suppliers across both countries.

The visit of the WA government delegates to the Parliament of India, the edifice of Indian democracy is a testimony to the scale of the aspiration of its 1.4 billion people and helps one feel the pulse of this nation. The need is to understand the environment in which Indian consumers live, how they think, how heterogeneous they are, what they value, how they are changing, and the need to substantiate this with a thorough analysis of the emerging consumers, emerging regions, and emerging sectors.

The Delhi leg witnessed forward movement in several areas, including business discussions with NITI Aayog, Agriculture Ministry, National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC), Department of Education, Skills and Employment on National Education Policy, Jindal Steel and Power Limited, ReNew Power, Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative (IFFCO), Tata Group, Aditya Birla Group, Digital India Foundation, Centre for Digital Economy and Policy Research, Larsen and Toubro (L&T) to name a few.

Industry to Industry MoUs and Expressions of Interest included cooperation in project development for a large lithium-ion batteries component including electrolytes, anodes, and cathodes manufacturing project at Kwinana with an estimated project cost of $2.88 billion; developing of 70 MW Solar with 315 MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) project jointly at Geraldton with an estimated project cost of $187.5 million; India's leading renewable?energy?solutions provider, Suzlon’s EOI to Sun Brilliance to set up a 1,275 MW Wind Farm (under Phase I of Sun Brilliance’s green hydrogen and ammonia project at Karratha) with an estimated project cost of $1.47 billion; agreements in mining and exploration with NMDC’s WA subsidiary Legacy Iron Ore with Hancock Magnetite Holdings for the Mt Bevan Magnetite project valued at $9 million, to leverage their common expertise in iron ore mining; ?Skills Council for Mining Sector (SCMS) and Phoenix Academy agreed to deepen skills in underground mining for enhanced productivity; Future Battery Industries Cooperative Research Centre (FBI CRC) and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) exploring supply options for Australian precursor materials and manufactured cells into Indian value chains, and identifying and facilitating technology-sharing opportunities.

Western Australia’s Invest and Trade Mission to India 2022 ?has offered its delegations and their businesses tremendous opportunities to collectively explore and assess prospects in the diverse and unique Indian market, within the comfort and in the company of compatriots. An opportunity to build on local knowledge, establish new networks, and develop robust influence to raise the collective profile of their industry and State in India.

This visit has offered WA a glimpse of how the nation’s political capital works and interacts with businesses. Politics is pivotal to policy and doing business in India. The federal government of India has over 45 ministries with multiple departments. The decision-making power percolates across different overlapping ministries/departments, understanding which is essential. Newland Global Group (NGG) is sure that the WA businesses leave Delhi with a much better sense of these structures and will align their India goal with a targeted, local, and customised strategy.

Next stop Mumbai!

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