Closer business ties with Italy
Anthony Byrne
posted Thursday, 25 February 2010
Australian Parliamentary Secretary for Trade, Anthony Byrne, welcomed a visit by a high level Italian business delegation this week as an indication of the ongoing strength of the relationship between the two nations.
Mr Byrne said the visit was the next step in a strategy to develop closer trade and investment links between Australia and Italy.
Prime Minister Rudd met with Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, in Italy as part of the G8 summit last year, where discussions included the importance of enhanced collaboration between Australia and Italy on infrastructure opportunities, and how to develop Italian equity in the Australian resources sector.
“The Australian Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, Anthony Albanese, who visited Rome late last year, also met the delegation this week” said Mr Byrne.
“This mission builds on the important work done during last year’s visit to Australia of Italian Under-Secretary of State for Economic Development and Foreign Trade, Adolfo Urso.
"During Mr Urso’s visit we discussed how we could work together to address structural issues in the international financial system and how we could promote new trade and investment opportunities, in particular through industry specific missions to both Australia and Italy.
“This is the first mission following our discussions and it’s an important one to build on mutual areas of opportunity such as inward and outward investment around the infrastructure and construction sectors.”
Delegates from leading Italian companies in this sector such as Ghella (construction), Atlantia S.P.A (toll roads), S.E.L.I (equipment/machinery), Rizzani de Eccher (engineering/design) and ANCE, the peak body representing more than 1,000 construction and building contractors in Italy, have travelled to Australia to participate. Firms from the food processing and bio tech industries are also in attendance.
The Australian Government's trade and investment development agency, Austrade, has designed tailored meetings and briefings in both Sydney and Melbourne to leverage this visit. There will also be presentations in collaboration with Invitalia (Italy's inward investment agency) to outline investment opportunities for Australian firms in Italy. The focus of these will be in the renewable energy sector, clean technology and tourism infrastructure.
“One of the key areas we have a market opportunity is in the energy sector," said Mr Byrne.
"Australia is perceived as one of the best places to source energy for the European market, and with the growing demand for energy in Italy and its need to secure its supply for the long term we are in a good position to leverage this demand.
“Austrade has already been approached in Italy by two of Europe’s largest energy companies to identify opportunities in the gas and coal area.
“We have also seen strong interest by Australian professional service providers (law firms, accounting firms and banks) in understanding the opportunities in Italy and relaying them to their Australian corporate clients.
“In fact, Macquarie Capital, Macquarie Group's corporate advisory, equity underwriting and specialised funds management business, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Invitalia this week to pro-actively engage in sourcing inward and outward investment opportunities between Italy and Australia. Macquarie Group is an Australian-headquartered global provider of banking, financial, advisory, investment and funds management services."
Italy is ranked 6th among OECD countries and 4th among European countries for Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It has a forecast GDP growth of one per cent in 2010 a turnaround from -4.8 per cent in 2009 (IMF). Its banking sector is still robust and government bonds have retained their investment grade rating.
Tags: Business, Resources, Trade