-- Inspiration five from the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between
(Speech by His Excellency Ambassador Chen Yuming at the China-Australia business community dinner at the
Chinese Embassy,
20 March 2012)
Ladies and Gentlemen,
First let me extend, on behalf of the Chinese Embassy in
I thank you for your active participation in and long standing support to economic cooperation and trade between
We appreciate your positive contribution to enhancing mutual understanding between our two countries and promoting development of China-Australia relations.
This year is the Year of the Dragon in Chinese lunar calendar. It also marks the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between
In four decades, like a dragon flying over cloud, development of our bilateral economic cooperation and trade has been phenomenal.
Trade volume was 100 million dollars when we signed the first bilateral trade agreement. Today it tops 100 billion.
One in every four dollars of Australia's export value comes from China.
Each Australian sells 13 tons of iron ore and 2 tons of coal to China every year.
Two-way investments have grown fast. In the past five years, nearly 60 billion dollars of Chinese investments were approved in Australia.
Economic relations between China and Australia are developing in an all-round manner, at multiple levels and across wide-ranging areas.
The two countries cannot leave each other, and our peoples have received real benefit.
Forty years have seen a trade volume a thousand times larger. What are the experience and inspirations we learn from this?
First, we must adopt a long term approach and aim for sustainable development of economic cooperation.
We have moved beyond simple merchandize relations, and are more interconnected and interdependent.
We have moved beyond single-area cooperation on energy and resources and become more diversified in trade and investment. Cooperation in infrastructure, energy saving, financial services and agriculture is gathering momentum.
We have moved beyond bilateral scope and tackled crisis together, contributing to stability and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region and the world.
The size of our trade relations means we need to let business determine business.
But more than that, it calls on us to proceed from a strategic height and chart the course for the future of a plural economic relationship.
We need to make efforts for an early breakthrough in the bilateral FTA negotiation, and establish long term, stable and strategic cooperative relations.
Second, we must maximize the objective strength of complementarity, and give full play to human's subjective initiative.
The economies of
But more importantly, over four decades, the governments and businesses of our two countries have focused on common interests and approached each other proactively.
Without such a convergence of motion, the range and depth of today's cooperation would not have been possible.
From the Channar iron ore project between Sinosteel and Rio Tinto in early days, to the participation in Australia's LNG projects by CNPC and CNOOC, the concept of mutual benefit and win-win cooperation has been well defined.
Exports to and investments from China have increased incomes of every Australian household by 10,000 dollars, and created tens of thousands of jobs.
More than that, mutually beneficial cooperation between China and Australia has played a key role in our efforts to tackle the global financial crisis.
Third, we must continue to enhance mutual trust and lift China-Australia relations to a higher level.
In forty years, economic cooperation and trade have always been the bedrock and impetus of the long term, steady and healthy development of China-Australia relations.
We need to convert close economic relations to stronger political and security mutual trust, which will in turn further promote sustained and fast growth of business cooperation, and ultimately push the comprehensive and cooperative relations between China and Australia to a higher strategic level.
Our business community, especially Australian businesses, can play a positive and important role in strengthening mutual trust between China and Australia, and will make critical contribution to facilitating a strategic partnership that is comprehensive, stable, mature and healthy.
As a Chinese poem goes, exhausting my eyes to a thousand miles further, I am ascending one more storey of the tower.
We are ready to work with the Australian government and business community and take the 40th anniversary as a new starting point.
Let us seize the present and look to the future, further promote our economic cooperation from a strategic perspective, and achieve new stride forward.
We have full confidence in this prospect. Thank you.