China doorstop - trade

STEVEN CIOBO: It's terrific to be here in Beijing, terrific to be here in China. Today is for the first time, an opportunity for all of Australia's tourism ministers to join together at a Tourism Ministers' Meeting outside of Australia and New Zealand, it's the first time we've ever done it. It reflects the importance that we place on China as an inbound market for Australian tourism. It also, of course, reflects the fact that this year is the year of China-Australia tourism.

You'll recall, I was here earlier this year when we had the official launch and of course we had the launch in Sydney of this year. This builds on the program of activities we've had. My focus with respect to today and I know that of my ministerial colleagues that are here, is to reinforce the message that Australia is very welcoming of Chinese tourism, it's our most valuable market in terms of tourists, our biggest source of supply of tourists from China. We get some 1.2 million Chinese that visit Australia each year and of course, together with Tourism Australia, and all of the State Tourism Organisations we are focused on continuing to grow that inbound market from China.

If you look at the events over this past 12 months I think it's been quite successful at highlighting the close ties between Australia and China and we continue to see, off the back of tourism and related to tourism of course, the very strong trade investment ties from the China market as well. In many respects for the Federal Coalition Government, the tourism industry is recognised as being an important growth industry for Australia.

It's played a critical role over the past couple of years in the rebalancing of the Australian economy and I am very focused on making sure that I work collaboratively with my state and territory counterparts for the betterment of all of Australia. Tourism is a major growth sector, more than 8 million international tourists generating around $40 billion dollars in expenditure, in terms of export income.

It's a market that, through clear-eyed vision about where you want to go, we continue to grow those numbers even more strongly. That's the primary purpose of the meeting today that's taking place here, we'll also have a presentation from the China National Tourism Authority (CNTA) talking about the domestic market here in China and what's happening, and how we can go about driving greater opportunities for collaboration between Australia and China around tourism, as well.

Of course, it builds on the work that the Government has done to liberalise from the mainland, our air services arrangement so that we've got, well, Australia now has the most liberalised air services agreements in place with China mainland, other than China mainland's ever done. Of course, across government, we've adopted a holistic approach so we're trying to get better alignment between growth we are trying to achieve in the tourism industry and our ability to put into place long term visas, multiple-entry visas, online applications that can be done for the first time in a language other than English.

All of this builds on momentum, or I should say, this adds to momentum, to ensure we are securing a larger slice of the outbound long-haul Chinese market. Also while I'm here, I have the opportunity to meet with Minister Song Tao from the Chinese Government, to talk about some outstanding trade issues. And that will be a precursor to my visit in two weeks' time, when I'll be in back in China, for JMEC, the Joint Ministerial Economic Committee, and a strategic economic dialogue, where I'll continue to engage in further conversations around it.

And, in conclusion, I want to just say, is the Federal Coalition takes tourism very seriously. It's a privilege for me to be Tourism Minister. We're investing a record amount of money in Tourism Australia, which in turn is leading to a record numbers of tourists staying for a record amount of time, and spending a record amount of money. And I'll make sure that continues.

INTERVIEWER: You mentioned there, the record amount of money that's being spent, and the Chinese tourists are the ones who are the big spenders, but there's been a real revolution in payments, and how people buy things in China, that they're not using traditional payment methods. They're using AliPay, WeChat … and, from what I hear, Australia hasn't really gotten its head round that. Is this something that you're going to be talking about? And it is a really serious issue to address, if you want those Chinese tourists to keep spending in Australia?

STEVEN CIOBO: You know, one of the exciting announcements today is the deal between Tourism Australia, and UnionPay. This represents a continuing work that we've been taking in this space. When I was here earlier this year, I was very pleased to see the signing of an MOU between Tourism Australia and the Bank of China.

This tie-up that we'll be announcing today between Tourism Australia, and UnionPay, that will help to drive penetration of UnionPay across Australia. It'll also see Tourism Australia better able to target aspirational Chinese travellers that want to come to Australia. By working together, sharing information, sharing our ability to market Australia with their customer base, we will, over time, like we did with Bank of China, I believe, secure a greater segment … and just a more targeted message to those who are aspirational about traveling to Australia.

Look, on payment system, more broadly, Australia, continues to make big advances in that space. And there's no doubt that, as more and more merchants want to facilitate and make it convenient for visiting tourists to be able to make payments, that they'll … we'll see the commercial rollout of new payment methods that will see a better alignment between merchants' needs and travelling tourists' opportunists' needs.

INTERVIEWER: Minister I know that you haven't had the meeting yet today, but are you hearing anything from the states so far about this "one belt, one road" issue? Is there any talk of, "Can we please more enthusiastically embrace this, so that we can get cash for the hotels, for Chinese tourists, et cetera?" Is there any talk like that, that you're hearing thus far?

STEVEN CIOBO: So, you're asking me, if the stakes have raised just a bit?

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, I'm just wondering, from State Ministers on this tourism issue. Do they look at this "one belt, one road" issue as something that potentially could affect their tourism bottom line, if they could maybe get more investment for, say, Chinese hotels, in the top end, or something? Are you hearing any feedback like that?

STEVEN CIOBO: The states haven't raised this issue with me. Clearly, though, I attended the Belt Road Forum here in May of this year, and made sure that Australia had a presence here. And we see terrific opportunities for collaboration between Australia and China. The investment pipeline into Australia is very strong. We continue to see some significant new support from Chinese investors.

And look, Chinese investors into Australia are critical. They're critical for helping to increase our supply pipeline. We know that we had false constraints on the supply, especially of hotel stock. And so, we are now starting to see that change. And that will help to drive more ability for us to have greater numbers coming to Australia. That's critical. Austrade works very closely for us in investment specialists to help us facilitate investment into Australia in that space and has done a really outstanding job. And of course I, as Minister for Investment, take up opportunity and engage frequently with major investors from China to talk about opportunities in Australia including, only last week, the launch of a new tourism investment website to help provide guidance in this space. Belt Road does provide complementarities between initiatives that we're going to take as a government to that China's undertaking, but none of the State Ministers have been raised with me directly.

INTERVIEWER: Are you disappointed, Minister, to see that investment in hotels overseas in this category is frowned upon now by Chinese regulating authorities. Will that be a problem in securing this investment?

STEVEN CIOBO: Well, what we're seeing, of course in the capital controls that China's government has put in place will of course have an impact. That impact will be widely felt across a number of countries within which China and Chinese SOE's and private businesses are looking to invest. My view on this is to be pragmatic and to recognise that we work with investors, it is not for the Australian Government or any government to dictate to the Chinese, which sectors they should or shouldn't be allowed to invest in pursuant to their domestically imposed capital controls. What we will ensure will happens, though, is that we've got a good pipeline of investment. One of the great things about investment into Australia is that it is highly diversified. We've got of course our single biggest investor being the United States. We've got very strong pipelines and investment from Singapore, from the UK. Yes, China is a player in the space, but what will ensure the Australian economy deals with this well is that we have a very diversified investment base, which means that, as the old saying goes 'we don't put all our eggs in one basket'.

INTERVIEWER: Yes. And beef. That's the other thing that you're talking to trade counterparts. That presumably is part of the conversation. We have been writing about this a little bit puzzled. Thank you very much for providing a very helpful background to colleagues when this issue came up on the sixth. Are you clearer at all about what this is about or maybe your meeting today's is about finding out more?

STEVEN CIOBO: Look, we're very clear about what the moratorium is about and it had to do with labelling issues from six plants and so that's been clear from day one. I made sure that I spoke very quickly with the owners of the various plants and I wanted to make sure that they understood that I took this very seriously. The Australian Government takes this very seriously. We of course respect the fact that there are import standards that China applies and they have expectations that our exports will meet their import standards now. This is not about a biosecurity matter or anything like that. This has to do with compliance with labelling requirements that those requirements need to be adhered to in exactly the same way that we expect those that are importing into Australia, exporting from a third country to Australia to comply with our requirements. The Department of Agriculture have concluded their audit of the various facilities. They've also provided guidance to the Department of Agriculture and we've provided that report now to HUSAQ and to the Chinese authorities. I don't have an update for where that is at, that is now with Chinese authorities. Perhaps I'll know more after today's discussion, but as I said, I see today's discussion as being effectively precursor to additional conversations that I'll have around JMEC in two weeks' time.

STEVEN CIOBO: I've got to absolutely commend Jan and her crew from the Post. I think that Australia has been very well served by a very forward leaning, proactive level of engagement from the Post. Because we recognise, this is of critical trade importance to us. We recognise that we have to be vigilant, and on the front foot, about ensuring that we work in a very collaborative way with Chinese authorities. And I also want to commend Chinese authorities, because we were able to quite quickly resolve, I think, for our mutual benefit, the issue about those containers that had been dispatched prior to the 24th, that were at sea. And we did so, and there was goodwill, and good cooperation between Australian authorities, and Chinese authorities. So I want to make sure we continue to work through this.

INTERVIEWER: Just on that, I've heard conflicting reports about the stock that was already on the ships, whether or not it got accepted at the ports at Shanghai. I've heard, some of it did, some of it didn't. Do you have any update about what was the end fate of the product that was already going to China?

STEVEN CIOBO: What I've been told is that all beef that was at sea, dispatched prior to the 24th, would be accepted. I've not been told anything to the contrary.

INTERVIEWER: Okay. Just to get back on tourism. You're about to go to India.

STEVEN CIOBO: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Is there a risk, with this focus on the Chinese tourism market, that Australia could become, perhaps overly reliant on the Chinese tourists, and perhaps should be, maybe trying to hedge our bets a bit more, by attracting some more Indian tourists to Australia. Is there a comparative effort on your department's behalf to get Indian tourists to come to Australia?

STEVEN CIOBO: We, obviously, very firmly believe you have to have a diversified mix for the same reasons that I outlined with respect to investment inflows into Australia. The same applies with respect to the export potential of Australian tourism. We know that we've got real potential here in China. We know that we've got real potential from North America. Those are two key segments where we're putting a lot of focus and emphasis.

There is, I believe, important initiatives that we can undertake about how we can maximize the return on the investment spend that we make, in terms of marketing in Australia. We also, of course, want to work closely with our tourism partners. We've got key distribution partners in markets. We've also got key partners for tourism in Australia, including, obviously, the airlines themselves that we work collaboratively with.

So we do have a very diversified approach that's also broken into strata. We've got different segments that we focus in different markets. So you'll have group tours, you'll have FIT-free, independent travellers … you've got different markets that you target. And of course, under the Coalition, which has invested some significant new resources into the youth market, especially from Europe. So we are putting a very diversified approach into what we're doing. China's important, North America's important, the youth market is important.

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