Australia to share expertise in sports, farming

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 21

The Australian High Commissioner to India, Barry O’Farrell AO, met Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar today and expressed interest in strengthening collaboration with the state in the agriculture, animal husbandry and dairying, sports, skill development and hospitality sector. Haryana Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Minister Jai Parkash Dalal was also present during the meeting.

During the meeting, Barry O’Farrell AO discussed about the possibilities for sharing Australia’s expertise with Haryana in the field of food processing and sports particularly in hockey and sports research for performance enhancement.

While inviting Australia to invest in Haryana, the Chief Minister said a dedicated new department namely the Department of ‘Foreign Cooperation’ has been setup by the state government to act as nodal department for all foreign engagements related to the promotion of trade, investment, education, skill development, tourism and further strengthening the diaspora engagement.

“In the past six years, Haryana has been put on the digitisation track. From ramping up the state government’s exercise for the ease of doing business (EoDB), having single-window clearance system for setting up new industries several efforts have been made to put Haryana on the world map. All these steps are going to act as big game-changer for wooing investors in Haryana,” said the Chief Minister.

He also urged the Australian High Commissioner to explore possibilities of organising youth exchange programme between Haryana and Australia for better cross-cultural understanding and in further strengthening bilateral relations.