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Australia nods one Chinese investment proposal per week

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-07-15 11:55

The Australian federal government is approving Chinese investment proposals at the rate of more than one a week, Treasurer Wayne Swan said on Tuesday.

Most of the proposals raised no issues for Australia's national interest, said Swan, who held a positive view of the investment relationship between the two nations.

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"We recognize that China has an interest in ensuring that we are able to supply the resources that it requires to fuel its continued economic growth," he told the Australian National University's China Update Conference in Canberra.

"Australia has an interest in expanding its capacity to supply those resources," Swan said.

The government was "particularly attentive" to any case in which a proposed investor in a resource was also a buyer of the resource.

"Certainly this has been the case with some recent Chinese investment," he said.

Australia's investment screening arrangements ensured Australia and China maintained a complementary and strategic investment relationship which delivered "significant win-win benefits" for both countries, he said.

Swan rejected suggestions that the government was seeking to tighten its foreign investment screening regime.