Five Aussie chain of stores to expand to India

The fact that the textile industry in India is doing well in the post-quota regime is evident from the business plans of five Australian chain of stores to set up shop here.

Addressing a press conference, C Sarat Chandran, director, Indo-Australian Chamber of Commerce, said that the stores viz David Jones, Target, Country Road, Lowes and Little Labels, would be shortly opening up their trade offices in India to source textile and garments.

Speaking on the occasion, M Ganapathi, consul general of India in Sydney, said that the import of gold from Australia had reached a new high with India importing gold worth $10 billion, making it the second most expensive item on India's import bill, next to crude oil.

Gold occupied the top most position in India's imports from Australia, pushing coal behind, which dominated the trade for several decades. Non-monetary gold contributed around A$2.5 billion or 43.9 per cent of the total exports from Australia, he said.

There are at least 1.5 lakh Indians residing in Australia and major chunk of the Indian population are students.

"We aim to double the number of students studying in Australia. We also wish to double the number of Indian tourists visiting the continent, as we can see an increase in visa applications from India, from the present 50 to almost 500," Ganapathi added.

Australian exports to India in the fiscal 2004-05 increased to A$ 6 billion as against the corresponding figure of A$ 4.8 billion the previous fiscal.