Global growth has moved to Asia, and Australia has to promote what it’s got when looking for investors to develop the north, government ministers and leaders have said at the conclusion of a major investment forum in Darwin.
The Northern Australia Investment Forum wrapped up in Darwin after three days of meetings between about 250 international investors examining investment opportunities in Australia’s north.
The forum followed the release earlier this year of the federal government’s white paper on developing northern Australia – the region above of the Tropic of Capricorn – and making it an “economic powerhouse.”
The federal trade minister, Andrew Robb, said Australia had to focus on capitalising on change, and “the centre of gravity for global growth has moved ... to Asia” with a growing middle class.
“That is an opportunity of enormous dimension, but we’ve got to be ready for it, and part of that is we have to sell what we’ve got here.”
He said recent free trade agreements gave Australia “first mover advantage”, and also noted concessions from China and Japan in the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
There were no concrete outcomes to announce but Robb said the forum’s objective was “to provide awareness of the sheer scale of what is in prospect”.
Robb said six or seven deals had been tentatively made during the forum. More than 60 connections were made in discussions on tropical medicine, and four deals “cemented, subject to due diligence”.
The federal minister for Northern Australia, Josh Frydenberg, said the forum’s goal was a national, bipartisan and long-term endeavour which he was sure would “stand the test of time”.
A $5bn concessional loan scheme, announced in the May budget, was detailed earlier in the forum, and will be open to infrastructure projects of public benefit which would otherwise have likely gone unfinanced, and which will be repaid.
Frydenberg said the loans would support energy, transport, communications and water investment opportunities. Sixty percent of Australia’s rainfall falls in the north, but only 2% was captured. Capturing more with the right infrastructure “could open up tens of thousands of hectares to quality agriculture investment”, he said.
Recent calls for investment in the Tanami Road upgrade would unlikely fulfil the requirements for investment under the scheme, but the $600m road project fund “could be used for a project such as this”, said Frydenberg.
He said a bilateral meeting with a large-scale investor and meetings with other private investors at the forum had seen interest in the concessional loan scheme.
“The purpose of the concessional loan program is twofold. One it’s practical support for projects that would otherwise not be built at this particular time, if at all. And secondly it’s the perception, a tangible sign that the federal government is investing in the north.”
Frydenberg rejected suggestions the loan scheme was the same as car industry subsidies which had been scrapped by the federal government, saying the car manufacturing industry was facing international competition which made it difficult to be economic and competitive. The $5bn was “not a grant, it’s a loan”, he said.
NT chief minister Adam Giles said the NT was focussing on investment for a five or six-star hotel, expanding ecotourism and working with nations to the north.
Growth projections for the tourism industry were about 50% higher for the north of Australia than national figures.
He would not nominate which Northern Territory projects were the closest to fruition, but the government was looking at building the case for a rail link between Tennant Creek and Mount Isa.
He said NT government projects were “getting the infrastructure right and the supply chain right”.
The government needed to focus on getting a “social license” from communities before advancing, he said when asked about why some projects – such as potential dams near Darwin – had not progressed.
