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Interview: Sino-Oz FTA boosts bilateral economy, mutual understanding: expert

Xinhua, June 18, 2015 Adjust font size:

China-Australia free trade agreement (FTA) will not only have a significant impact on economic and trade relations between the two countries, but will also further boost mutual understanding between the peoples of the two countries, an Australian expert has said.

Robin H. Chambers, member of an advisory council to the Australian government on the Australian Trade and Investment Policy, in a recent interview with Xinhua, said, "I sit on the special Australian government council, an advisory council and was participating in preparing several aspects of the FTA. It will have a very big impact because there are many business but also cultural issues covered by the FTA."

The Australian and Chinese governments signed a long-awaited FTA in a ceremony in Canberra on Wednesday, freeing up trade between the two countries.

The historic agreement, signed by Australia's Trade Minister Andrew Robb and China's Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng, finalized negotiations that began 10 years ago and followed the Declaration of Intent signed in November by the two countries' leaders.

Chambers said, "The business relationship between China and Australia has been very favorable. Australia has benefited vastly from China's resource industry's focus and the numerous amount of exports have been generated in Australia."

Chambers, also a senior partner of the Melbourne-based commercial law firm Chambers & Company which has many Chinese clients, has participated in China's biggest investments here in Australia in the 30 years since the firm was founded.

"The mining boom from 2003 to roughly 2011 has provided a great deal of wealth for Australia and helped boost its foreign reserves. So I think the people of Australia are very happy and enjoy this relationship very much," he said.

Chambers noted that with increasing bilateral economic and trade exchanges, people from both countries are getting more and more understanding about each other; the signing of the FTA will undoubtedly further cement people-to-people exchanges between the two countries,

"In the Victoria national gallery at the moment, there is a very famous Palace Museum exhibition, which has been very successful and is attracting a lot of interest. Many Australians had their first chance to see a lot of Chinese culture, some of the most beautiful Chinese culture here," he said, adding this is just a part of the process whereby Australian people get to know about China a lot more.

"In the past there was not so much personal understanding between people, it was just business and it was at a very high level. So the average Australian people wouldn't really know anything about how this business was happening."

Chambers stressed the importance of increasing exchanges between the peoples from both countries.

"We've got so many Chinese students studying here now, gradually they can become more and more influential in meeting their counterparts here in Australia. Also with one million Chinese tourists coming to Australia, the links from the Chinese side to here are quite wide spread, of course many Australians are going to China now as well," he said. Endi