Wool roundtable strengthens ties with India

WoolProducers Australia CEO, Jo Hall, presenting at the Wool Roundtable between Australia and India in October.

A high-level delegation of wool industry and Australian government representatives met with their counterparts in India to advance discussions on mutually beneficial trade matters including diversifying Australian export markets and increasing the labour and skills exchange between the two countries.

WoolProducers Australia Chief Executive Officer, Jo Hall, said the one-day Wool Roundtable between Australia and India in Delhi, chaired by the Indian Ministry of Commerce, also involved a presentation on the Sheep Sustainability Framework (SSF), following a request for more information from Indian government officials.

“The level of exchange and goodwill has increased in the seven months since the last Australia-India meeting in March and, since the free trade deal was signed, we have seen India more active in our markets,” Ms Hall said.

“Currently, between 80–90% of our raw (greasy) wool goes to China, and while Australia and China have a very productive and long-standing relationship in terms of wool, there are very few early-stage wool processors around the world so we are investigating markets that will complement our existing trade patterns.

“This was the second trip to India this year to build the relationship between our Australian wool production sector and India’s large textile market.”

Ms Hall said the discussions also involved ways to address labour shortages in the Australian industry.

“We’re looking at ways to set up a cooperative agreement with the Indian trade so they can help us during our surge time in harvesting, which is spring and autumn, while upskilling their industry as well.

“India has roughly the same number of sheep as we do but their harvesting practices are very different so we believe we could assist Indian wool harvesters a lot.

“We have been working as an industry to get shearing added to the Federal Government skills list, and if we can do that it could open up avenues for workers to come in on existing visas such as the subclass 400 (Temporary Work Short Stay Specialist) visas.”

Ms Hall said following the first roundtable discussion in March, a request was made for a more detailed presentation on the SSF.

“They were very interested in the Framework, so I spoke about the four key themes, the indicators and metrics underneath them, with some examples. What sustainability means to Indian processors can be quite different to what it means to us, so they were very interested to learn what we were doing and how the framework came about.”

Following this Roundtable in Delhi, the Indian government has sent a delegation to Melbourne as part of the Global Sourcing Expo, which saw another Australian-Indian Wool Roundtable take place on 22 November, chaired by WoolProducers, along with WoolProducers President, Steve Harrison, taking a small delegation to AWTA (Australian Wool Testing Authority), AWEX (Australian Wool Exchange) and to see shearing near Bendigo.

“WoolProducers were proud to be able to take some Indian guests to experience Australia’s wool production, harvesting and quality assurance processes to show our industry credentials,” Ms Hall said.

“While at the Roundtable I was asked to speak about the SSF again, which demonstrates that the SSF is gaining traction in international markets.”

The relationship building is set to continue, with an invitation to the Australian industry to attend Bharat Tex Expo in Delhi in February 2024.