Australia to enhance sister province ties with China
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The Australian Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard said on Monday the national government is to work with the Victorian government to continue to strengthens sister province relationship with China's Jiangsu Province.
After meeting with the Secretary of Jiangsu Province Liang Baohua who is visiting Victoria on Monday, Gillard said "In my meeting this morning, we've canvassed the full gamut of the relationship between China and Australia, and particularly between Jiangsu Province and Victoria. Developed over 30 years, this is a relationship of cooperation in education, in innovation, in tourism, as well as in trade."
"This obviously has great economic benefits for Victoria and for the nation overall. It has great people-to-people benefits as we see Chinese students come to this country, particularly to Victoria, and so many young Australians choose to spend part of their time either as a tourist or as a student in China." said she.
Trade Minister Simon Crean who is yet to have his meeting with Liang Baohua said Monday the Jiangsu Province is another example of the second track we've been adopting in relation to our trade and economic relationships with China.
He expressed one more effective mechanism to pursue would be to approach provinces where Australians already had strong trade and economic ties and look to where they could be expanded.
Jiangsu is one of those provinces. It already is a very important trading partner so far as education services and natural resources are concerned. Potential to take education further is huge, as is the field of clean energy, Crean said.
Recently opposition party Senator Barnaby Joyce called for a ban of Chinese government-owned companies to invest in Australia. Gillard comments on Monday this is "erratic and irresponsible that are in contrary to Australia's national interests."
She also stated that as a national leader, his or her comments have impact in market, other countries as they listen to the leader's comments. "Our vision of this country is for it to be a prosperous country engaged with the world. To do that you need to trade with the rest of the world." Gillard said.
