Seeking to allay concerns about Indian students coming under frequent attacks, Australian High Commissioner Peter Varghese today said Canberra was taking a lot of steps for safety of Indians studying there.
   
"We are certainly taking lot of steps to do what we can to ensure their safety", he told reporters on the sidelines of a function here. "Overall Australia is still a very safe place".

Peter, who had lunch with children of Mithra, an NGO that looks after children and young with physical and mental disabilities, however, said the flow of Indian students to Australia might have come down for a number of reasons.    

Stating that Australian government always welcomed students from India to provide quality education, Peter said "we don't have the figures on the students visa. It might have gone down and that could be due to a number of reasons".
  
To a question, he said the current bilateral trade between India and Australia was about 19 billion Australian dollars per year.
  
Terming the trade between both the countries as "big and fast", he said Australian government was keen on making India its number one export market from the current fourth rank.