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Guangdong, Aussie state call for greater co-op

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-10-27 16:05

Hong Kong-Guangdong Business Conference was held in Sydney on Tuesday with both Guangdong and New South Wales leaders calling for greater cooperation in business and trade.

At the one-day conference, Governor of Guangdong province Huang Huahua told the audience that the delegation consisting of Hong Kong and Guangdong government officials came to Sydney to implement the agreed consensuses to work closer in time of trouble and seek common development, and to push forward the implementation of the investment trade and cooperative projects, aiming at mutual cooperation in a wider field and higher level.

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Huang said Guangdong is the first province of China's reform and opening up with a long history of friendly exchanges with Australia. Thirty years ago, the leaders of Guangdong and New South Wales of Australia established a friendly sister-province relationship. Since then, Guangdong and Australia, particularly NSW, have had good growth in bilateral trade. In 2008, trade volume between Guangdong and Australia reached $8.14 billion, accounting for one-eighth of the Sino-Australian trade.

NSW Premier Nathan Rees said at the conference that the current business conference was an outstanding opportunity for both sides to exchange ideas and sign agreement of cooperation. He urged the participants to command this moment in history because the current alignment of economic opportunities was historic and unrepeatable.

Rees also noted that it was clear that the worst of the global financial crisis was behind China and Australia and it was thus appropriate to chart the next decade of expansion and growth. In this sense, there could be no better time to discuss trade and investment than now and he was looking forward to a success of the business conference as well as the signing of a number of cooperative agreement on trade, joint venture and business.

The conference was participated by the 500-strong delegation of Hong Kong and Guangdong, headed by governor Huang Huahua and Henry Tang, Chief Secretary for Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. More than 1,000 government officials and local business leaders also attended the meeting.

On the sidelines of the conference, the representatives of Guangdong delegation and local business companies signed a total of 27 cooperative agreement with trade value of $3.19 billion.