Thank you very, very much. Mr Menon, High Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to be here in the commercial and business capital of India to have an opportunity of sharing, for a few moments with you, the reasons why I believe that the links, commercial and otherwise, between our two societies stand on the threshold of greater depth and greater expansion in the years ahead. I want to particularly acknowledge the presence here today of all of the businessmen who have come from Australia at the time of my visit. I think it is important in relations between Australia and countries such as India to emphasise the fact that in the end, it is arrangements and investments and deals made at a business level in the private sector that determine the generation of wealth and determine the strength of trade and economic relations.
The role of government in our society in Australia is to help facilitate, create the right economic climate and then get out of the way and allow those who risk their money and who make the decisions to get on with what they do best. And I am pleased to report to our Indian guests that the health of the Australia economy is something of which all Australians can be particularly proud. We are now in the fifteenth year of uninterrupted economic growth. We've had over the past few years an enviable series of economic statistics. We've seen our inflation remain at a very low level, we've seen our interest rates at historically low levels, we've seen unemployment fall to a 30-year low. At the end of this financial year the national Government will have no net debt, and when one looks at the averages of, I don't mind you applauding that, please go ahead. If you look at the average of the OECD which is somewhere in the order of 48 to 50 percent, that is a remarkable performance.
Can I also say that one of the statistics of which I am especially proud is the fact that over the past ten to fifteen years, the number of self employed people has grown exponentially. People increasingly in Australia are starting their own businesses, women as well as men, particularly operating businesses from home. Both men and women are starting businesses and taking risks and investing and that is a response to a very strong economic climate. So that is the strength and the optimism of the country with which you, our Indian guests, will deal not only now but in the years ahead.
Australia, of course, has a population of only 20 million people. I can also give you another statistic. We are 53rd in population size of the countries of the world but our economy is the 14th largest and that is evidence of the way in which we have been able to punch and trade above our weight around the world. Australia, of course, in the past few years has derived enormous benefit from our trade links with other nations in the Asia Pacific region. Japan remains Australia's best customer. China has risen very sharply, particularly as a purchaser of our gas and coal and iron ore and Korea has also been a very welcome and a very strong purchaser of much of our energy product.
India historically has had a very close relationship with Australia but it has been a relationship built more on history and commonality of culture and language and institutions rather than on the strength of the economic links. But that has begun to change, and change very significantly in recent years. Of the 30 major export destinations from Australia, the growth in Australia's exports to India has been greater than any of the other 29. So the pace with which our relationship has begun to pick up in recent years in worth noting. I have included in this delegation representatives of the education sector and I welcome in particular the Vice Chancellor of Melbourne University. And I mention that to make the point that India is now our second largest source of overseas students, and Australia, I understand, is the number 3 destination choice of Indian students going abroad after the United States and the United Kingdom. And given the background in relation to the links with those two countries, that is a remarkable achievement.
Now all of that is good, and all of that is extremely pleasing, but as I've learnt from 10 years in my present job, you only have to talk about the past for a cynical journalist, or a commentator, or indeed quite properly a citizen of the country to say 'well that's all very well John, but what about the future?' And it's about the future that we're concerned about today.
The most remarkable thing about India of course is that India is a major contributor, indeed a pivotal partner, in the emergence of this remarkable economic development of the 21st Century and that is a truly global middle class. When I was much younger, when you learnt about the economics of the world, you learnt about the structure of society around the world. You associated the middle class with the nations of Europe and North America with just small fragments from Asia, and Africa and South America and of course Australasia. That of course has now all changed.
India has a middle class of what 200, 250 million, China the same. In ten years time, the middle classes of India, China and Japan together will equal or exceed those of North America and Europe. I say that as a flat statement of fact. I am neither applauding it nor condemning it because we are all part of this planet, we're all part of the globe and we all must share it and live in harmony. But it does mean that the centre of gravity of economic activity is profoundly shifting to this part of the world and right at the centre of that is India. And from my point of view, as Prime Minister of Australia, I want Australia to remain very much at the centre of it. And that means maintaining not only our very strong relations, traditional relations with our existing big trading partners and I pay tribute to the contribution that Japan and Korea and China and many others have made to the current strength of the Australian economy, but I also want to see that Australia is very much a part of that global middle class and is a participant and a partner and a friend of India. We have a lot going for us in the relationship. The barrier of language is not there and the common institutions and the relatively common legal systems are of enormous advantage. And the diversity of the business delegation that has come on this visit is, I hope, a message to the business community of India that we in Australia are serious. We're serious at a government level; we're also very serious at a commercial level. And we are keen as a government to do everything that we can to promote that relationship.
At a political level our two countries are talking more, perhaps, than ever before. There was a time, let's be frank about it, many decades ago in the relationship between Australia and India where our political views were very divergent. At the time of the Cold War, India had a profoundly non-aligned policy. I don't condemn it, I simply mark it as a fact of history, whereas Australia was profoundly part of a Western alliance and it remains so proudly today. But as time has gone by, the Cold War has ended. The old divide between the United States and the Soviet Union is something of history.
We have new challenges which have brought Australia and India together. We have the challenge of terrorism in our part of the world. It's a challenge that Australia has responded to through our involvement in Afghanistan and also in Iraq. It's a challenge that generates quite legitimately, political debate around the world and not least here in India. But all of us have a stake in fighting terrorism. Terrorism is the enemy of democracy, it is the enemy of free people and there is no country that has more proudly defended and practiced democracy than India. I said last night at the State Dinner given to me by the Prime Minister that when India became independent in 1947 there were plenty of cynics who said it wouldn't last. And in the 1960s, one well known journalist from one of the English newspapers rather boldly predicted that the election of 1967 would be the last democratic election to be held in India.
Now he and many of the other cynics were proved wrong. And when you think of the troubled birth of this country, the terrible tragedy that accompanied the partition of India, it is a remarkable tribute to the resilience of the people of this country and their commitment to democracy. It is a commitment that has been more sorely tested for the current generation of Indians than it has been tested for the current generation of Australians. We've taken it as our natural existence and something that we really just take for granted as we get up in the morning. India has not been so fortunate and it makes the continuing embrace of democracy in this country all the more meritorious.
So my friends, there is every reason for us to be optimistic about our shared future. India's economic strength coming off the base of very courageous economic reforms, many of them initiated by the current Prime Minister of India when he was Finance Minister in the early 1990s. India's economy has been liberalised, it's more welcoming to foreign investment, it has reduced its tariffs, it has floated its exchange rate, it's done all of those things that countries must do if they are to take advantage of the globalised economy in which we all operate. And anybody who understands the economics of the 21st Century knows that we can not go back.
We are forever a globalised, economic environment and the countries that will succeed are those countries that can take advantage of that globalised environment. They can compete effectively, can find market opportunities, can appreciate that exploiting the opportunities of globalisation is something that is done across all of the industry sectors. And many of the best demonstrations of Indian expertise of course have been in the service sector and of the contribution of Indians to the information technology industry. I come to this city, I'm reminded of the extraordinary contribution of India to film and other aspects of entertainment, not only here in this country but around the world and there's been a very, very special link between India and Australia in relation to that. And I'll have the opportunity later today of meeting some of the Indian actors and actresses that have been a very, very important part of that process.
So I do speak as an optimistic proponent of the cause of closer relations between our two countries. And of course there are, as the Consul indicated and as Mr Menon indicated, the very important sporting links. Not only the links in the great game of cricket, but of course links in other sports where Australians and Indians regularly compete against each other and I have to say that I am absolutely delighted that that great Australian cricketer and former captain Steve Waugh is with us today. I would like to acknowledge Steve's presence as somebody who has brought enormous pleasure to Australians and has been an absolute role model to Australians and cricketers around the world with his commitment not only to the game, but to the cause of relieving suffering in this country.
My friends, I am delighted to be here. I thank all of you to your personal commitment to the cause of closer relations between Australia and India. This is a very exciting time to be involved in the Australian-Indian partnership. You cannot but feel that this country is experiencing a quantum leap in terms of its economic activity, its outlook on the rest of the world, its commitment to solving the challenges of the world in the early part of the 21st Century. And I am delighted as Prime Minister of Australia to be here with my fellow countrymen in the business community offering our partnership, our commitment and our shared endeavour to build a better world including a better relationship between Australia and India.
Thank you.
[ends]