Howard announces opening of Australian consulate in Chennai

Australian prime minister John Howard today announced the opening of an Australian consulate in Chennai, while addressing the business fraternity here.

Howard said that India was increasingly being recognised as having an enormous future. Pointing out the similarities between the two countries, Howard said that both are commonwealth nations, both use English extensively, and in terms of business, both practise good corporate governance.

"Both the countries understand that we live in a globalised economy and history shows that in the last 20 years the South East Asian countries that have embraced globalisation have prospered," he added.

"India's capacity to attract investment has grown significantly in the last few years and many Indian companies have set up their operations in Australia, as well. There is enormous scope for more development," said Howard.

"Australia ranks as the third preferred destination for higher education by Indian students while the first two places are occupied by US and UK respectively. This is no mean achievement, considering the fact that the pace of growth has been rapid for the country," he said.

One step ahead in this direction was seen with the Madras Institute of Technology entering into an agreement with the University of Queensland. Talking about dissimilarities between the two nations, Howard said that the size and demographic pattern were vastly different for both countries. "India is a very young country while Australia is like US and other European countries where majority of the population is old."

He pointed out that the Australian companies must take advantage of the young Indian population. Howard said that India and China becoming the global middle class gives immense opportunity for companies to cater to millions of voracious customers. It is high time the relationship between the two countries deepened, he said.

Earlier during an interaction, K M Mammen, president, Indo-Australian Chamber of Commerce, said that three Australian states Victoria, South Australia and Queensland have set up their offices in South India last year.

Mammen said that John Howard was the first Australian prime minister to have visited Chennai. He also pointed out that the increase in Indian population a year equalled the total population of Australia. He also mentioned the recent advertisement campaign of State Bank of India, which claims that the bank has a larger number of depositors than the population of Australia.