"Australia's landscape is becoming more crowded and complex"...absolutely!
Australian April 19/13
'What Does China Really Want From Australia'.
It wants to be able to invest up to one billion at a time without having to seek FIRB approval.
Almost all its investments to date have come from the State-Owned Enterprises which dominates its domestic economy.All such SOE investments-from whichever country require the FIRB tick,which has always in recent years, been given after delays or with strings attached.
Australia remains-just-China's biggest target for over- seas investment.No great disaster in this space. Australian investment in China is tiny,partly because of our own failure of spirit and persistence,but mainly because the barriers remain varied and insurmountable.
But Chinese lobbyists and diplomats continue to complain of "discrimination" against their investment- even while they are at the same time seeking special treatment.
Trade minister Craig Emerson stated that China wants to go from "zero to a billion"-we aren't in a position given, community sentiment,to lift that to a billion dollars- so that is where we are stuck-the community wouldn't accept that,nor would the opposition.
The opposition has said it want's the threshold for private investments to be reduced to $15 million with Tony Abbott saying in Bejing in 2012,that SOE proposals will face a tough time.
So the bottom line is that while Emerson gamely says, "There are many paths to the top of the mountain" the present paths don't look too promising.Maybe China's new leadership wants to tread water until it faces a likely new team in Canberra,thus its ambit claim.
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From the same source...
Australia a superpower at last? A Food Superpower. This was the great hope being paraded at the Global Food Forum in Melbourne last week.And its a hope that hinges on Asian demand.
This is being felt by exporters-and is anticipated to grow exponentially as the Asian middle class expands. The figures are many and monstrous-including the apparent need for a $1 Trillion future investment in Agriculture.
The mood at the conference resembled the buzz that participants began to feel at resource conferences twelve years ago,when the Dotcom boom had fizzled out-and the speck miners that had rebadged themselves as net players had come to grief.
Manufacturing was becoming commodified as China Inc began to supply the world.And thanks chiefly to the demand from booming China and elsewhere in Asia,mining was back-not only in demand ,but prices as well.
The mood last week,too,was one of excitement,of being in on the ground floor of something big,moving from the mining boom-to the Dining Boom.Here at last was a way for Australia to reinvent its manufacturing base,adding value to its Agriculture.
The level of participation was remarkable in its powers and wealth and intensity-far heavier than a conference on Agriculture would have attracted just a year ago.
Anthony Pratt,chairman of Visy,spoke of Australia fronting the second green revolution,quadrupling our exports to feed 200M people-and that's just the starting point,with the middle class in Asia growing,he forecasts to 3 Billion consumers.Anyone who lives in-or travels regularly to Asia is aware of the amazing international range of foods that upwardly mobile families there now consume in restaurants and at home.
This of course throws up new questions,including the need for huge infrastructure investment-such as in the tropical north,where Andrew Robb [opp finance spokesman]wants to concentrate effort to convince the broader public of the need for greater foreign investment in Agriculture and infrastructure.
What underlines the seriousness of intent is that we are no longer so snooty about NZ.We are now prepared to acknowledge that the Kiwis are doing exceedingly well in this space and we have much to learn from them.
That's the good news,and it is now even driving Govt policy-with Craig Emerson admitting that the new "Mini Package" trade deal we are negotiating with China would mirror the free trade agreement that NZ signed five years ago.
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On top of that,the RBA is gearing up to invest 5% of its $38 billion in foreign currency assets in China.This unprecedented move is part of a bigger plan to strengthen ties with Australia's biggest trading partner.
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In reference to "Chinese lobbyists and some diplomats complaining of discrimination against their investments"
Try this for size...
Chinese property developer Shanghai Zhongfu won sole rights recently to develop 15,000 hectares of irrigated land in the Kimberly region-after the State and Federal Govt spent $510 million of tax payer funds building road, irrigation,port and local community infrastructure to support the deal.
This virtually unknown private Chinese company has been handed all the available land in the second phase of the Ord irrigation scheme for a peppercorn rent.Provided it is cleared,developed,farmed and a sugar mill built.
The FIRB blocked the $252 million bid by state owned China Nonferrous Metal Mining to acquire Lynas in 2009.And yet they allow the world's most populous nation to vacuum up our prime AG soils at an alarming rate.
What the Chinese are doing is legal and above board and are far sighted in their actions-what a pity the Aussie psyche doesn't reflect their thinking-for once we lose our land to foreign interests we lose our rudder.
Australia must ensure that a major percentage of our mines and prime AG soils remain in our hands to protect us from the coming food and finite-mineral resources, hopefully Tony Abbott will shine in this department.
There will come a time when Northern has drilled up an an historic resource and Dysprosium is in chronic short supply and the CYG make shareholders an offer too good to refuse... what will we do then? :)
Go Well Guys, HM
NTU Price at posting:
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