Last Updated:2014-09-05

On behalf of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Dr Raby delivered a speech at the NAB Australia-China Business Week.

“To give you a sense of the opportunities here for small and medium enterprises, the recent Australia Week in China - which was heavily backed by our Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade - saw a raft of commercial deals signed between Chinese and Australian companies, worth around AU$894 million in value.  They included Australian  companies in sectors as diverse as  meat, dairy, medical technology, aged care, building and construction, education, and financial services.”

“At a personal level I am proud to be part of a Government that is working hard to improve and enlarge our relations with China. It was twenty years this month that we established, with the Zhangjiakou City Government and the Hebei Province Geological Bureau a contractual joint venture, Hebei HuaAo Mining Industry Company Ltd,  to explore and develop a promising lead zinc deposit at Caijiaying near the town of Zhangbei in Hebei Province.”

“There seem to be two views on China’s prospects. One holds that there will be a medium term slower rate of investment especially in property, and hence demand for iron ore and coal, but that because of the rapid rate of urbanisation, with a quarter of a billion people expected to move to the cities over the next twenty years, the excess property inventory will be taken up.”

“Either way it underlines the need for us to to think of China less as a destination for bulk commodities - coal, gas and iron ore - and more as a sophisticated market for high quality, differentiated services - education, architecture, design, legal and financial services and technical services among many others.”

This speech first appeared in Malcolm Turnbull’s official website:

https://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/media/speech-nab-australia-china-business-week