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Framework this year for uranium supply to India, says Australian minister Bishop - The Times of India
India registers record production of nuclear fuel | Business Standard News
We have a surplus if N-fuel that can last for a few months, for the first time. due to the record jump of production.
Another side news:Despite strong opposition from anti nuclear lobbyists, Australia is confident a framework to facilitate commercial negotiations for supply of uranium to India will be in place by the end of this year, visiting Australian foreign minister Julie Bishop said Monday.
India and Australia had in September 2014 signed an agreement for cooperation in peaceful uses of nuclear energy but they are still negotiating administrative arrangements to enable uranium sales to India. Officials from the 2 countries will meet again next week to conclude the agreement which will then have to be ratified by the Australian Parliament to allow uranium to be shipped to energy hungry India.
Ahead of her meeting with her counterpart Sushma Swaraj, Bishop said she expected the process to be completed by the end of 2015. "We are not going to allow the agreement (for civil nuclear cooperation with India) to fail for lack of creative thinking,'' said Bishop, adding that there no reason for the 2 countries to not reach a deal when India had signed similar agreements with the US and Canada .
India recently signed an administrative arrangement agreement with the US for civil nuclear cooperation after the Americans, according to Indian officials, abandoned their demand to track nuclear fuel and other materials sourced by India from not just the US but also third countries. Indian officials have claimed that the US will go purely by IAEA inspections of its facilities, much like the concession given by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in formalising an appropriate arrangement agreement with India for supplying uranium to India. India and Canada will soon sign a commercial agreement for supply of uranium to India.
While Bishop was non committal on whether or not India's agreement with Canada or the US could serve as a template for the agreement currently being negotiated by India and Australia, she said, ``Our concerns and India's position can converge''.
"India is seen as a trusted and reliable user of nuclear energy. The Australian government is very keen to get the agreement ratified by Parliament. This year the framework (for commercial negotiations) should be in place,'' she said, adding that Australia was also very ``enthusiastic'' about India's prospects of joining the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) which lords over world's nuclear commerce. Bishop said she foresaw no difficulty in parliament ratification if the opposition Labour Party supported the agreement.
During her 3-day visit to India, Bishop will also meet finance minister Arun Jaitley and defence minister Manohar Parrikar. With Jaitley, she will discuss implementation of a comprehensive economic cooperation agreement (CECA) by the end of the year. Australia is keen to operationalise the agreement at a time when India's bilateral annual trade has fallen to $ 15 billion from a high of $ 20 billion. Bishop said CECA was on the priority list of PM Tony Abbott as well as his counterpart Narendra Modi.
India and Australia will hold their first bilateral naval exercise later this year as part of the new framework for security cooperation agreed to by the 2 countries during Modi's visit to Australia last year in November. Bishop confirmed that India will also host the Australian defence minister later this year. The enhanced security cooperation also envisages more high-level defence related bilateral visits from both sides in the near future.
Industrialist Gautam Adani's mega coal mining project in Queensland also got a thumbs up from Bishop who said the protests against the project by anti coal lobbyists was not going to impact relations between the 2 countries. "Coal will be a part of the global energy mix. There are legal processes under way. We have to see that environmental concerns are not compromised...Australian economy is built around FDI and it will continue to be like that,'' said Bishop, who will also travel to Chennai to inaugurate the new consulate there.
India registers record production of nuclear fuel | Business Standard News
We have a surplus if N-fuel that can last for a few months, for the first time. due to the record jump of production.
