PM Gillard Forged Closer Economic Ties with China's Guangdong Province
Australia is gaining further inroads in China's economy, this time via Guangdong, considered as the most prosperous province in the Asian economic powerhouse and home to a lucrative market of more than 100 million people.
Trade Minister Craig Emerson said on Friday that Canberra and Guangdong has made mutual commitments to further their economic cooperation following the meet on Thursday between Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Guangdong party chief Wang Yang.
The Canberra-Guangdong deal, according to Mr Emerson, will mostly cover the services industry, including education, tourism, financial, accounting and legal services, logistics and architectural design.
Mr Wang, following his meet with Ms Gillard, has expressed willingness to closely link his province's economy to that of Australia, paving the way for more business transactions between the two economic powers in the years ahead.
"Mr Wang indicated he wanted to integrate Guangdong's thriving economy more fully with Australia," he said in a statement.
With the industrial zone of Guangzhou, where giant manufacturing sites that cater to the global market are located, as its epicentre, Guangdong has emerged in the past decades as China's richest location outside of Beijing and Shanghai.
Mr Wang, who is the equivalent of a state premier in China, presides over economic activities within his realm, which the Australian Associated Press (AAP) has estimated to be worth more than $840 billion to date.
According to The Canberra Times, Mr Wang is considered as a rising star in China's political set up, his fortunes purportedly further surged with the recent exit from the public eye of the populist Bo Xilai.
Media reports have suggested that Mr Bo was purged out of power, creating more possibility for Mr Wang to ascend into national prominence in China.
His three-day stop in Australia so far led to "a comprehensive and constructive relationship," between Australia and China, Ms Gillard announced following her talks with Mr Wang.
With the formal establishment of closer economic relationship between Australia and Guangdong, Canberra is committed to "further strengthening bilateral ties," with one of China's premier economic regions, Ms Gillard said.
She noted too that the new agreement came as both nations commemorate four decades of productive and close diplomatic relation, which in the last two decades was marked by China's rapid industrialisation.
The Asian country's ascent to economic prosperity and prominence, highlighted in 2011 by its rise as the world's second biggest economy, largely fuelled Australia's resource boom, which serves as the backbone of the domestic economy.