The Hon Dr Craig Emerson MP
Minister for Trade and Competitiveness
Keynote Speech
Launch of the
Australia-Guangdong Business Cooperation Council
Guangzhou
11 April 2013
Thank you, Consul-General.
It’s a great pleasure to be back in Guangzhou.
As the Consul-General has indicated, I was last here in August of 2011 travelling with a 100-strong Australian business delegation.
At that time it was the biggest business delegation to ever leave Australia for China.
And now today I am back in Guangzhou once again to expand the business ties between Guangdong Province and Australia.
The genesis of the Australia-Guangdong Business Cooperation Council was a visit to Australia of former Guangdong Party Secretary, Wang Yang.
In June last year Secretary Wang came to our shores, and I was delighted to introduce him to Prime Minister Julia Gillard at Kirribilli House, her official residence in Sydney harbour.
After his meeting with the Prime Minister, Secretary Wang and I were able to chat about the relationship between our two great nations and, more specifically, about the relationship between Australia and Guangdong.
Secretary Wang used that meeting – and a subsequent dinner – to outline his proposal for an economic council that would help manage our deepening economic engagement.
Secretary Wang as we know is now Vice-Premier Wang, which means that he was in Beijing for the Prime Minister’s visit this week.
Prime Minister Gillard and I naturally, sought him out, as one seeks out an old friend.
And as old friends we were able to relive past meetings and bask in the very warm friendship that we had developed.
And I can confirm that Vice-Premier Wang is very happy about the signing into life today of the Australia-Guangdong Business Council.
I will be witnessing the signing with new Guangdong Party Secretary Hu Chunhua.
And of course I look forward to meeting him and carrying on the relationship with him.
This Council came into existence today because of friendships struck, and because we wanted it to happen.
As in business itself, it is the personal relationships and mutual goodwill that make things happen.
Governments and their departments can set frameworks and deal with logistics, but at the end of the day, without human interaction and conversation, there can be no progress.
The Council we are launching here today is made up of around 10 Australian companies with business interests in Guangdong and a similar number of Guangdong companies with business interests in Australia.
And I can advise you that this is the first Business Council agreement between the province of Guangdong and any country.
Of this, everyone in the room can be proud.
The inaugural meeting of the Council will be held later this year.
The business representatives sitting on the Council show the diversifying relationship that Australia has with Guangdong Province.
As well as manufacturing and textiles, they represent legal and financial services, accounting, logistics, engineering, and professional and office services.
This initiative will help take our commercial relationship to a new level, by identifying further ways to deepen our economic cooperation.
When I was here just under two years ago, I was pleasantly surprised and excited by the degree of business exchange between Australia and this province of 100 million people.
Guangdong has an economy that is bigger than Norway’s and Saudi Arabia’s and almost double the size of Poland’s economy.
So you know that this area has long been the driver of China’s export-led economic development – its economy has been growing at an astonishing 13 per cent annually on average since 1979.
Looking ahead, Guangdong business and consumers will seek services in areas such as banking, insurance, funds management, securities and consultancies, areas where Australian firms have a world-class reputation.
We are encouraged by the achievements of an earlier generation of Australian entrepreneurs.
And the good news looks set to continue.
In a recent AustCham survey of Australian businesses operating in China, around two-thirds of companies were positive about the outlook for their business and over half were planning expansion.
The Australian Government stands ready to assist businesses in these endeavours.
As the Consul-General mentioned, I have been in China for the past week accompanying the Prime Minister as part of the most senior Australian political delegation ever to visit China.
We are here strengthening our high-level political ties with China’s new leaders.
And of course supporting Australian business in China has been a key feature of our strategy.
That’s why Prime Minister Gillard announced on Monday an agreement allowing direct Australian dollar-RMB trading that will streamline business transactions and reduce costs.
In October last year, the Government released a roadmap for positioning Australia to make the most of opportunities such as this – we call it the White Paper on Australia in the Asian Century.
The Australian government is the first government of a developed country to write a plan for its future in the Asian region, in the Asian century.
The White Paper is a comprehensive agenda with clear objectives and pathways for achieving them.
And since the launch, we are moving quickly to implement the reforms necessary to meet these goals that we have set for ourselves.
This Business Council represents a tremendous example of vision for the future of our trade and investment relationship.
And we want to do more of these sorts of agreements with other provinces from China.
There is enormous potential for greater business engagement between the Australian and Chinese economies.
I congratulate and thank the Guangdong Provincial authorities for taking this step, and warmly thank the Council’s business representatives for their commitment and efforts.
And I eagerly look forward to receiving the first report from the Council later this year.