Page 3841 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 19 September 2017
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
hospitality investment opportunities in Canberra, as well as seeking collaboration opportunities on smart city technologies.
Hong Kong is ranked by the World Bank in 2017 as amongst the top 30 economies in the world. It is home to a highly educated workforce and renowned as a globally significant financial, commercial, trade and transport hub. Whilst having legal autonomy from mainland China, its connectivity to China is nevertheless very important. As a priority market for the ACT, regular and targeted engagement with Hong Kong is critical to driving business-to-business opportunities, facilitating investment flows and trade between our two cities.
In Hong Kong I met with the President of the China Communications Construction Company, CCCC International Holding Ltd. It is the financing platform for the overseas business of the China Communications Construction Company Ltd, which is a Fortune 500 company focusing on the investment, design and construction of transportation infrastructure such as ports, highways, bridges, railways, airports, dredging and municipal works. Members may be aware that CCCC acquired John Holland in Australia in 2015. John Holland, as part of the Canberra Metro consortium, has been chosen to deliver the first stage of the capital metro light rail project.
Canberra is a planned city and successful by design, and the ACT government is seeking to facilitate investment in new infrastructure in the city, with inspired, world-class architecture. As detailed in the ACT infrastructure plan update 2016-17, the ACT government is delivering the largest ever infrastructure investment program for our city as part of our commitment to strengthen our growing economy. Over $2.9 billion will be invested in infrastructure in Canberra over the four years to 2019-20. The meeting with CCCCI provided the opportunity for me to outline Canberra’s future key infrastructure projects and the second stage of Canberra’s light rail network, and we explored the potential for CCCCI to participate in these projects.
A key focus for the government is to promote forward hospitality investment and to attract world-class international hotels to the city. Whilst in Hong Kong, I met with senior representatives of both the Marriott group and Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts. The meeting with the Marriott group followed on from a successful meeting with their Australian representatives in Sydney earlier this year. These meetings in Hong Kong gave potential investors a greater understanding of Canberra, its economic strengths and, importantly, the government’s plans for growth through world-class developments, including hotels. They also provided an opportunity to market sites of interest from the Canberra property investment prospectus and for the ACT government to gain additional insights from investors into these market segments.
The government is committed to building an innovation ecosystem that creates wealth and jobs in the 21st century knowledge economy. This commitment to accelerating innovation, creating investment opportunities and supporting companies underpins the ongoing diversification of the territory economy. To this end, I met with Hong Kong’s Secretary for Innovation and Technology, Mr Nicholas Yang, to learn about the Hong Kong government’s developments in the innovation and technology sector, and to discuss the alignment between Canberra’s and Hong Kong’s economic drivers in the area of innovative, knowledge-based economic growth.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video