Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott confirmed he had completed negotiations with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Australian Trade and Investment Minister Andrew Robb and Chinese Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng would formalise the deal this afternoon.
Abbott told the Australian parliament this afternoon that it was an historic and memorable day.
“Chinese direct investment in Australia, with just 23 million people, is only a little less, on some data, than Chinese direct investment in the United States, with more than 300 million,” Abbott said.
“This is very significant: we trade with people when we need them, but we invest with people when we trust them.”
In his role as co-chair of the Australia-China Senior Business Leaders Forum, Forrest said the FTA represented a “new shoreline from which the Australia-China relationship could set sail smoothly”
“Both governments should be congratulated for achieving this outcome, with 95% of trade to be tariff-free once the agreement is in full force,” Forrest said.
“This agreement will lead to the creation of more and better jobs for the people of both nations.”
Aside from welcoming the agreement, the SBLF called for the Chinese and Australian governments to speed up the implementation of the FTA.
The SBLF also resolved to endorse the establishment of a renminbi trading centre in Sydney; committed to support Chinese investment in Australian agriculture; welcomed the establishment of ASA100 and the increased threshold for private investment in Australia; called for a 10-year multi-entry visa for Chinese and Australian visitors and pledged to develop a 10-year plan to encourage industry to develop untapped water resources in northern Australia.
The forum also called for the Chinese to expedite the listing of Australian companies in Shanghai and encouraged the Australian government to remove bureaucratic hurdles for Chinese state-owned enterprises to invest.
The SBLF is also co-chaired by Import-Export Bank of China chairman and president Li Ruogo and has long called for an FTA.
“This agreement will change Australia’s relationship with the most important trading nation in the world and it was fitting that former Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile and former Ambassador to China Dr Geoff Raby, who initiated the negotiations, were present at the SBLF meeting,” Forrest said.
The agreement comes as Forrest last week warned that the flooding of the iron ore market by majors BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto could damage the Australia-China relationship.
“I wouldn’t have thought it’s a very customer-friendly policy and I only hope that it doesn’t have any impact on the bilateral relationship that Australia has with China, which is very strong,” he told journalists last week.
