Page 1495 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 6 June 2007
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revolved around the Beijing-Canberra sister city relationship. This was particularly important in light of the recent decision of the Beijing Olympic Games Committee to include Canberra in next year’s Olympic torch relay.
Canberra is, as we all know, one of only 22 cities worldwide, and the only Australian city, that will host the Olympic torch next year. For two days in April 2008 Canberra will be on hundreds of millions of TV screens in China and globally. This has enormous potential to showcase our city around the world, to get people thinking about coming here to visit and to do business.
In Beijing I met with Mr Liu Qi, the President of the Beijing Olympic Games Organising Committee and Party Secretary of the Beijing Municipal Branch of the Communist Party of China. Mr Liu was also the original signatory to our sister city arrangement. He and I discussed Canberra’s support for and hosting of the torch relay. I assured Mr Liu that Canberrans are very excited and honoured to be hosting the relay and that it will be a great occasion. It was also a timely meeting, as BOCOG officials were in Canberra last week for a series of meetings with Australian and ACT government officials and the Australian Olympic Committee.
I also met with the Vice Mayor of Beijing, Mr Lu Hao, who was keen to explore ways to better connect our firms and institutions. ACT and Chinese officials will explore this issue over coming months with a view to providing a clearer business development context to the sister city agreement.
While in Shenzhen I was pleased to attend the opening of the Australian Business and Industrial Centre and to show my support to Canberra-based company ACTECH Australia Pty Ltd. ACTECH has signed contracts with the nearby government of Xinxiang to establish the centre in that city. The Australian Business and Industrial Centre has been designed to provide companies with a highly cost-competitive base in China and to provide new entrants to the Chinese market with the opportunity to be situated near and learn from other Australian companies. It is very pleasing to see a local Canberra company as the major development partner in this project, headed by Mr Tom Wu. I also thank Mr Wu for his support and participation in the mission.
As noted earlier, I attended a successful meeting with mission participant Yellow Edge and the vice president of CELAP. CELAP was established by the Chinese government to train China’s emerging leaders, including ministers, governors, company leaders and city mayors, and it currently trains around 5,000 officials a year. As a result of our meeting Yellow Edge and CELAP have agreed to develop joint leadership programs for Australian and Chinese public servants.
In Shanghai I also met with Hindmarsh China and its joint venture partner Beijing Kingdy to review their development plans in Shanghai and Beijing. In 2004 I also assisted Hindmarsh in its joint venture negotiations and it is pleasing to see the joint venture now trading profitably with over 30,000 car parking spaces under management. The Hindmarsh-Kingdy joint venture has also led to other commercial investments and encouraged a two-way flow of merchandise and capital between Canberra and China.
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