China Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) delegation lunch

On behalf of the Australian Government it’s a pleasure for me to welcome such a high level financial services delegation from China to Parliament House today. I understand you have had a busy morning of briefings and discussions with The Treasury, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Austrade.

You have also chosen a busy and exciting week to be in Australia, and in Canberra, with the Australian Budget being brought down on Tuesday.

Australia has a very strong relationship with China, reflected in China now being our largest trading partner. As you will also be aware, our Prime Minister and Trade Minister have both recently returned from highly successful visits to China where financial services was a major focus of their visits and meetings in Beijing.

From your meetings in Sydney and Canberra, you will be aware that Australia has a highly diversified and internationally competitive financial market across a diverse range of financial products and services – including Real Estate Investment Trusts, which are the focus of your visit to Australia.

Australia is one of the largest listed property trust promoters in the world, and has long been a nation with a great passion for property investments. Australia has, for a long time, been the most developed REIT market in the Asia-Pacific region. For more than 40 years now, REITs have provided investors with high yields, capital growth and relatively low levels of volatility.

The REIT sector is quickly expanding to become one of the most popular forms of business model in the Australian property industry.

In fact, the Australian Stock Exchange is now home to over 12% of the world's listed real estate with the ASX reporting that more than 1 million Australians now have exposure to the REITs sector.

I am sure that the comprehensive program of meetings you are having in Australia this week, will prove very valuable in assisting China with the development of your regulatory framework, offering procedures, asset arrangements and implementation of your REITs market.

Australian government agencies and our financial services institutions look forward to providing support to China’s rapidly growing financial markets through accessing our world class technical expertise, management systems and back-office arrangements that Australian financial service providers have developed.

We also look forward to seeing further opening and access to China’s financial services market through the Australia China Free Trade Agreement negotiations which have gathered further momentum following our Prime Minister’s recent visit to Beijing.

I’m sure that you are all keen to have some lunch, so please enjoy the meal and let me reiterate my welcome on behalf of the Australian Government and our support for this very important high level visit to Australia.