Last week Team PTAM had the pleasure of attending the Newcastle China Week Business Forum, presented by the City of Newcastle and the Confucius Institute and sponsored by the National Australia Bank with support from the Hunter Business Chamber.
The forum entitled Exploring The Possibilities – China Now outlined the incredible advances China has made in regards to outbound economic investment and its strategy to stimulate innovation, diversification and growth by investing in the key industry sectors of Food/Agriculture, Healthcare, Education, Tourism, Technology/Clean Tech and Professional Services.
Think Global’s David Thomas outlined China’s “Going West” strategy whereby economic activity and investment will transition from the eastern seaboard to the central inner-western areas. This strategy designed to support urbanisation, growth and the creation of new industries within China’s 2nd tier cities has enormous potential for those engaged with the Chinese market. These 2nd tier cities such as Chongqing with a population of over 28 million people and Chendu with a population of over 14 million people are set to benefit from the Government’s Westward focus and in turn create new investment opportunities for Australia.
Organisations like Hunter Net, The Confucius Institute and Export Growth China are working to connect our regional businesses and their products with Chinese Investors through networking events, trade missions and the impressive ShanghaiMart showroom. With China investing $61.3 billion USD in Australia over the past 10 years the opportunities already available to our region through the Port of Newcastle, our strong real estate market, University and our many traditional tourism drawcards are many.
The numbers are simply staggering:
- China is currently the world’s fastest growing wine market with imported wine sales growing faster than domestic brands;
- 12% of all Chinese tertiary students studying overseas are studying in Australia;
- China’s health food market is expected to grow to $70 billion by 2015;
- China is home to the world’s fastest growing travel market with 65 million outbound departures;
- China has overtaken the U.S. as the world’s largest economy;
- With a population of over 1.3 billion, China has emerged as the world’s largest market for food and beverage.
However, despite being the world’s second-largest economy and the biggest trading partner for seven of the 12 countries that today signed the Historic Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), China was excluded from the agreement, which has been seen by some observers in Beijing as a US-led effort to economically contain China.
The Chinese government has reacted cautiously to the agreement reached by the 12 nations negotiating the agreement with a spokesperson for the Ministry of Commerce saying: “China hopes the TPP will mutually promote other regional free trade arrangements and will make a contribution to the development of trade and investment in the Asia Pacific.”
In a sign that Beijing is keeping the door open to one day joining the pact, the Commerce Ministry also said China had “an open, constructive stance towards building trade integration in the Asia-Pacific”.
www.hunternet.com.au
www.exportgrowth.com.au