Judging from the number of Chinese investments that have been sealed this year, Australia it seems had ceased to be China's favorite mining destination.

In an analysis by legal firm King Wood Mallesons, it showed that at this time of the year, only eight deals involving Chinese companies have been closed, down by half from two years ago.

The favoritism that was once afforded Australia by Chinese mining magnates has now been directed towards Canada and Africa.

"We have a lot of competition for Chinese investment dollars from jurisdictions that the Chinese think are friendlier towards them in Canada and Africa," King Wood Mallesons' Nicola Wakefield Evans was quoted as saying by The Australian.

Australia's mining haven status have been largely hit by the high cost of doing business in the country, coupled with the implementation of the carbon and mining taxes. Adding more fuel to the fire was Australia's tough environmental standards and difficulty in hiring and utilising foreign labour.

"It comes down to whether we are a country that's easy to do business with. Canada and much of Africa are being very proactive," Ms Wakefield Evans said.

Although new LNG projects have helped boost Australia's total value of firm resource projects by $102 billion in the past year, according to a latest review of investments by Deloitte Access Economics, this could be trampled on what with the increasing number of oil discoveries in East Africa. In July, oil and gas exploration companies in that country discovered 24 oil discoveries from just only 27 test wells.

The same Deloitte Access Economics report likewise revealed few new projects are being considered of late. The value of resource projects under consideration had already dropped by $95 billion in the past year, to $117 billion. These projects are still not guaranteed to push through as commitments have not yet been by the mining firms that proposed them.

What's more, Chinese investors, in the wake of the downturn in world commodity markets, were keeping a watchful eye on potential investments around the world, Ms Wakefield Evans said.

Securing endorsement and approval from the Chinese government has now become more difficult, as the government presumably wants to protect their interests.

Case in point is the takeover bid by Hanlong Mining of China of iron ore developer Sundance Resources. Though China's National Development and Reform Commission approved the proposal, it wants Hanlong Mining to lower its proposed takeover bid to 50 cents a share from 57 cents a share.

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