NEW DELHI: Australian foreign minister Marise Payne on Tuesday announced an additional AUD $100 million for the distribution of covid-19 vaccines in the Indo-Pacific region.
This takes the total Australian commitment to AUD $623 million and comes days after the Quad countries — US, India, Australia and Japan announced a vaccine initiative – to manufacture and deliver vaccines to countries in the Indo-Pacific region. According to a statement issued after the summit, the US and Japan will fund the vaccine initiative with the vaccines being manufactured in India, with Australia looking after the last mile delivery of the vaccines.
The vaccine initiative was seen as a major takeaway from the summit that was held on Friday against the backdrop of an aggressively rising China. The vaccine initiative comes in the face of countries across the world struggling to inoculate their populations. India has so far distributed 58 million doses of vaccines to 70 countries around the world, underlining its reputation as “pharmacy to the world."
Speaking in the Australian parliament, Payne said that the leaders of the four countries — US president Joe Biden, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, Australian prime minister Scott Morrison and Japanese prime minister Yoshihide Suga – had “launched a landmark partnership ... for our region’s recovery from covid-19."
“Together we are taking action to expand safe and effective covid-19 vaccine manufacture and delivery in 2021," she said.
“Reflecting our respective strengths and investments to ramp up vaccine manufacturing capacity fund the procurement and distribution of vaccines and provide last mile delivery support," she said.
“Building on the (Australian) government’s existing commitment of a $ 523 million regional vaccine access and health security programme Australia has pledged an additional $ 100 million to be allocated in consultation with Quad partners," Payne said.
A person familiar with the development said that the focus of the Quad initiative was Southeast Asia as this region lay within the Indo-Pacific. The Quad’s agenda “is positive" and aimed at benefitting the region, the person said.
Referring to a second working group on new and emerging technologies that was also announced at the end of the first Quad summit, the person said that India and Australia will deepen their bilateral cooperation on new and emerging technologies like artificial intelligence under the ambit of the working group on technology. The two countries were already exchanging views on 5G, the person cited above said. Two countries will work on establishing an eco-system for these technologies, the person said.
Generally deemed “historic," the summit was however described by Australian prime minister Scott Morrison as the most significant development since the Australia-New Zealand-US security treaty in the 1950s, the person said.
Speaking in the Australian parliament about the new technology working group, Payne said: “We have also established a critical and emerging technology working group recognising that a free open and inclusive and resilient Indo-Pacific requires that critical technology is governed according to shared interests and values that builds on the Quad’s existing agenda."
Cutting dependence on China on rare earth metals and slowing down the pace at which Beijing acquires critical technologies like fashioning semiconductors are seen as possible areas for cooperation among Quad countries, according to news reports.
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