Speech by Mike Rann Australian Ambassador to
Italy to the Confindustria Young Entrepreneurs
Plenary Session
Rome, 25 September 2014
Thank you very much to President Marco Gay for the
invitation to address this plenary session today. It is a
pleasure and honour to have the chance to speak to you
about Australia’s G20 presidency. I am also delighted
that I have the chance to acknowledge and thank you for
the important part that your delegation played at the G20
Young Entrepreneurs’ Alliance Summit in Sydney in
July.
I had the opportunity to meet most of the delegation
before their departure and I was struck by their desire to
make a concrete contribution to the work of the G20. I
was also very impressed by the quality of the young
entrepreneurs I met – Italy can be very proud of its
young businesspeople. A lot of people were involved in
ensuring the success of your participation, but may I just
mention the great work by Luca Donelli who has been in
constant touch with the Embassy in Rome and Austrade
in Milan.
Let’s turn to the G20 and how Australia has tried to give
a new impetus to the organisation under its presidency.
Just a few years ago the G20 played an important role in
saving the world from another Great Depression. But we
have moved on from that and the agenda now is about
working to create growth that creates real jobs.
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As you will have seen from last weekend’s meeting of
Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in
Australia, the emphasis has been on encouraging
countries to develop growth strategies. In particular the
goal is to lift global growth by an extra 2% by 2018
thanks to new measures.
This new growth will largely be created by structural
reforms and increasing the level of global investments,
especially in infrastructure. Last weekend’s meeting
approved the Global Infrastructure Initiative which will
create a single global database, thus better connecting
investors, wherever they may be, to projects, wherever
they may be located. In a globalised world you need to
look well beyond national borders and I am delighted
that numerous Italian companies, large and small, have a
presence in Australia, a country which offers excellent
business opportunities, especially in infrastructure.
Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors also took
important steps on the stability of the banking system
and cross-border tax avoidance, something the Italian
Treasurer Padoan was particularly pleased about. They
also urged coordinated efforts in tackling the Ebola
epidemic, which is of course a healthcare issue but may
have a significant economic impact if not addressed
adequately.
All of these issues and proposals feed in to papers and
discussions for the Leaders Summit to be held in midNovember in Brisbane. A summit which will be attended
by Prime Minister Renzi along with other world leaders
– the first time a serving Italian prime minister has
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visited Australia, an important and welcome result from
our presidency.
The proposals from the G20 YEA summit your
delegation was involved in will also feed in to the
preparatory work for the Leaders Summit. As will the
contributions from other G20 groupings, such as Youth
20, Business 20, Civil 20, Think Tank 20 and ministerial
meetings on trade and employment. What Australia has
tried to achieve as president of the G20 is to have the
input of various groups to develop policy, but limited to
a narrower and more achievable range of objectives than
perhaps has been the case in the past.
Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott wants this year’s
G20 to be about much more than the final communique
and a photo opportunity. We want the meeting in
Brisbane to embrace real, measurable and practical steps
to lift growth and create jobs and that is why it will have
a relatively narrow focus on a few key economic issues.
To lift GDP across the G20 by 2% over the next five
years means going beyond previous commitments in
order to seriously address the economic constraints
impeding growth. This means reducing red tape,
increasing competition and supporting investment in
quality infrastructure that will have long-term and shortterm economic and employment benefits.
Securing more private sector funding for critical
infrastructure, with stronger cross-border investment, is
crucially important to unlock productivity for developed
and developing countries alike. The OECD has estimated
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that the global infrastructure gap will be around USD 70
trillion by 2030. There is a lot of private sector money
out there but we need to get the settings right and this is
an area where governments can demonstrate leadership
in order to achieve real results. We need to focus on
removing impediments to private sector investment.
The Australian G20 presidency has also sought to lift
workforce participation. To this end there was a G20
meeting of labour and employment ministers in Sydney a
couple of weeks ago. Its proposals, to be fed back to
national governments and also into the Leaders Summit,
were once again focussed on practical measures. The
G20, and especially the Australian presidency, wants to
see young people either “earning or learning” and we
want to see more opportunities for women to participate
in the labour market and to have access to better quality
jobs. I know the latter in particular is a matter of great
concern for our Foreign Minister Julie Bishop.
We truly value the contributions of all those who have
been involved in developing the agenda and proposals
for the Leaders Summit. The outcomes of the Leaders
Summit will only be as good as the ingredients that are
used to put it together. So far I think we’re on the right
track and may I thank your delegation once again for its
role in that.
Faced with an audience of so many young entrepreneurs
I cannot let slip the chance to talk a little about the
Australian economy and why you should think about
investing there. I know some of you already have and I
hope you’ve had a positive experience. If you have I’d
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love to meet you individually to find out more. And if
you’ve had problems investing in Australia or would
simply like to find out more about the country, I’d love
to hear from you too. The Embassy in Rome and the
Consulate in Milan are very much open for business and
we are happy to assist you in whatever way we can.
Australia has enjoyed well over twenty years of
uninterrupted economic growth and was the only country
in the OECD not to go into recession during the financial
and economic crisis. Our real GDP growth in coming
years is forecast to exceed all other major advanced
economies. We have a transparent and well-regulated
business environment and an efficient legal system. We
have a skilled, multilingual work force - Mandarin and
Italian are the second and third languages in Australia
after English. We have excellent universities –
increasingly attended by Italian students - and very
liveable cities – 4 of the top 10 in the Economist’s
recently published Liveability Survey are Australian
cities: Melbourne, the number one city for the fourth year
running, Sydney, Perth and my own city Adelaide.
Australia is at the heart of the Asia Pacific Region, the
world’s most dynamic in terms of economic growth.
75% of our exports go to Asia, and nearly a third to
China alone. We have a series of free trade agreements
with key partners in the area and are negotiating others.
Australia can be a bridge into markets in Asia which if
tackled head-on can prove difficult due to cultural,
linguistic and bureaucratic issues. Companies such as
Prysmian, Ferrero and Iveco have chosen to establish
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manufacturing facilities in Australia, while Ansaldo STS
has its southern hemisphere HQ in Brisbane.
A number of prominent Italian companies have
established operations in Australia or are about to do so
and many are bidding for and winning important public
contracts. These include infrastructure companies such as
Ghella, Salini Impregilo, Rizzani de Eccher and Astaldi –
the latter also taking an active role in the B20. I am
pleased to note the presence of Intesa SanPaolo in
Australia, providing, among other things, support to
Italian businesses. Italy also offers Australia
technological innovation as I discovered on a recent visit
to Magaldi Power which is doing excellent and important
work in the energy sector. And as I am in Confindustria,
it would be rude of me not to mention your President’s
company, Mapei which has been increasing its product
range in Australia and is now about to open a new
factory in Queensland.
It is true that at the moment the balance of trade is firmly
in Italy's favour, but two weeks ago I was as at Milan
Unica with Paolo Zegna, Loro Piana and Nino Cerruti
and other key players from the world of fashion. I was
very pleased to hear that around 80% of the superfine
Merino wool used by the best Italian brands comes from
Australia.
I am also pleased that an Australian company, Westfield,
is investing €1.3 billion to build Europe's biggest
shopping centre in Milan, a project which will create
17,000 permanent jobs on opening and a further 27,000
jobs during the construction stage. This project is a vote
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of confidence in Italy’s future – a message which
perhaps Italy hasn’t heard very much in recent years for
various reasons which I’m sure you are familiar with. I
am proud that Australian companies are among the
leaders in making new investments in Italy and I think
we will see that trend increasing as the Italian
Government’s privatisation plan gets underway.
There are numerous other surveys and statistics I could
bore you with to convince you of Australia’s economic
merits, but let me just use one more which as young
entrepreneurs I am sure you can relate to – the
importance of the use of new technology for global trade.
In a recent survey of G20 countries by the Economist
Intelligence Unit on behalf of e-bay, Australia was
ranked the top “e-trade ready” country due to affordable
Internet access, a well-developed regulatory framework,
and high usage of smartphones and e-payments.
I know many Italian businesses are interested in
Australia and in the wider Asia-Pacific region. And so
they should be. I wish the Italian Government every
success with its economic reform program, but however
successful that may be, Italy and Europe are not going to
offer the dynamic growth opportunities that Asia-Pacific
can. I know in the past there was a tendency to say
Australia “troppo lontano”. I’m glad to say that shortsighted vision is being replaced by a more open approach
to consider geographically distant, but economically
close and important markets. As young entrepreneurs,
but essentially as young people, you have a natural desire
to explore the world, to discover, to make new
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friendships. Australia offers you the chance to do all of
that and to grow your business too.
Many thanks once again for the chance to speak to you
and I look forward to answering any questions you may
have today, but please don’t hesitate to contact me in the
future if you want to know more about our G20
presidency or the prospects of doing business in
Australia.
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