NEW DELHI: The government’s concern over duty-free import of coal under the proposed bilateral trade agreement with Australia is seen as the main reason for a delay in the announcement of an interim deal, which was to be the key element of the PM-level summit on Monday.
While everything was going on smoothly and commerce minister Piyush Goyal and his counterpart Dan Tehan had last month set a 30-day deadline for their officials to clinch the early harvest scheme — a precursor to a full-fledged comprehensive economic cooperation agreement — coal has caused a last-minute delay.
It is the top item in Australia’s export basket to India, with coking coal accounting for a bulk of it. Australia is the biggest source of coking coal shipments into India.
