Australia - news, etc

[ahojunk]

China’s New Hope hunts for $1bn food, agricultural assets

New Hope chairman Liu Yonghao speaks to the media in Sydney. Picture: Adam Yip

The Australian
12:00AM October 7, 2016
SUE NEALES
Reporter - Rural/Regional Affairs

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China’s largest private agribusiness conglomerate, New Hope Group, is on the hunt for food and agricultural assets in Australia.

New Hope Group chairman and billionaire founder Liu Yonghao, in Sydney this week to open his company’s first Australian office, plans to invest more than $1 billion in Australia’s farm, food processing and property sectors in the next three years.

New investments in fish farming and aquaculture, beef feedlots, organic enterprises, food processing and irrigation farming — but not the vast Kidman beef empire — top New Hope’s shopping list.

Mr Liu, whose personal wealth is estimated at more than $8bn, declined to comment on the recent controversy over the $300 million bid by Chinese company Shanghai Pengxin to buy the Kidman cattle company, which was vetoed by the federal government. China’s state-owned power distributor State Grid was also knocked back from buying the NSW power network AusGrid.

But Mr Liu believes the already considerable investment in local food and agricultural assets by his New Hope Group in Australian has won the tacit approval of the Australian government.

“We feel as a company we have been approved by local authorities (here) for doing the right thing,” Mr Liu said.

“By our investments here we have shown to local authorities that we bring more jobs, employment, market opportunities, capital and tax — and that we invest in our business to grow and expand with our local partners.

“We are very confident about investing in Australia.”

Mr Liu said his preference was to take majority stakes in existing agricultural and food businesses in partnership with local Australian companies, often leaving existing management in place.

“We are focusing on finding strategic partners that we can invest in and together grow bigger and stronger; often the biggest limiting factor here is scale.”

New Hope Group bought Australia’s fourth-biggest abattoir, at Kilcoy in southern Queensland, in 2013 and is increasing its annual slaughter capacity through new investment from 240,000 cattle to more than 500,000. It has also spent more than $100m funding a majority share of Australian Fresh Milk Holdings, the joint venture company established with the Perich and Moxey dairy families and Freedom Foods to buy and expand the large Moxey Farms intensive dairy operation in the Lachlan Valley near Forbes.

This year New Hope acquired small online vitamin producer Australian Naturalcare, providing New Hope with its third pillar to export in-demand Australian food and health products to China.

All three existing businesses are currently being expanded, thanks to significant investment by New Hope to buy more farms and more dairy cows for AFMH, new Kilcoy processing lines and expansion of its small direct-selling vitamin plant.

Mr Lui said New Hope — which has more than 80,000 employees and annual sales in excess of $15 billion as China’s biggest producer and processor of pork, chicken, eggs, and stock feed, as well as one of its largest dairy producers — is in Australia for the long term.

“People say we are very diversified with healthcare, property, dairy and meat, but I say no, everything is about the health and wellbeing of people in the end,” Mr Liu said yesterday.

“That is why Australia is one of our major focus; your farmers are excellent in local expertise and you have some of the best pastures, and clean air, in the world — we realised we don’t need to have 100 per cent Chinese control and management to produce great milk and other products.”

New Hope Group and its listed subsidiary New Hope Liuhe — headed by Mr Liu’s daughter Angela — is also a key player in the joint Australia-China ASA 100 group, championed by Australian mining and beef entrepreneur Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest.

The group has won approval to establish a bonded China-Australia food and agricultural Free Trade Zone on the Zhoushan Island, adjacent to deepwater Ningbo Port and across the Gulf from Shanghai.

Mr Liu said his vision was for the special Sino-Australian agricultural export Free Trade Zone to become a food processing hub, with companies like New Hope able to ship their Australian food produce direct to Zhoushan for processing, before it was sold into China or exported to other regions such as Europe, North America and Southeast Asia.

China’s food demand is expected to escalate sharply over the next few decades as its population soars and becomes more affluent.

Mr Liu was emphatic that China’s degraded soils, pollution and urbanisation made food self-sufficiency impossible.

 

[AndrewJin]

Ultimately, it will be Chinese companies abroad that export agricultural products to China.
A big picture!

 

[ahojunk]

The following is from an Aussie newspaper and talks about Chinese tourists to Oz.

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Chinese tourism boom shows no signs of slowing

A tourist in front of the Sydney Opera House on Thursday.

Visitors take in the sights of Sydney from Mrs Macquarie’s Chair. Picture: Stephen Cooper

The Australian
11:16PM October 7, 2016
ROWAN CALLICK
China Correspondent, Beijing

While commodity prices deflate export receipts and Chinese investment faces special challenges in Australia, one major sector of business with China is still booming — tourism.

And this week could break records for Chinese visitors, since the “golden week” holiday began on the country’s National Day on October 1.

The number of Chinese tourists was up 23 per cent to 1.16 million in the year to August 1, and their spending in the year to July 1 was up 27 per cent, to $8.9 billion — almost 25 per cent of spending by all foreign visitors to Australia.

John O’Sullivan, managing director of Tourism Australia, tells The Weekend Australian that Australia now tops China’s rankings of aspirational destinations, and of places people intend to visit.

The chief drawcards, according to TA’s research, are food and wine, natural beauty, and blue skies.

The “millennial” visitors, a third of the total from China, are also seeking the type of experience they can’t have back home, and that their friends might not yet have had — so they can claim social media bragging rights.

This is leading these new generation tourists to seek to immersive experiences rather than more conventional tours. “They are seeking out self-drive holidays, and are learning to surf,” he says.

They may have gone first to a long-haul destination, usually North America or Europe, but then, as they become more confident about booking on their own devices at home, they will turn to Australia, O’Sullivan believes.

This generation, he says, uses smartphones constantly while travelling, expects free WiFi, and uses Union Pay for access to cash. “They want to be able to check that they can get access to congee for breakfast, and to safe modern hotels in general.”

They like to shop too, of course. “They know products are authentic in Australia, and they like to be able to attach that to their stay too. They look for the brands.”

But there is now more focus in promotions on, for instance, walking on a beach — with the shopping as a bonus.

“They haven’t really discovered Northern Territory. Expect that to happen over the short to medium term.”

Tasmania has surged in the last couple of years, O’Sullivan says, particularly after a visit there by China’s President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan. Tasmania’s “lavender bear” has also become “something of a cult sensation”, because it can only be bought at the Bridestowe Lavender Estate farm door in Tasmania.

Tourism Australia has been running a large-scale campaign in China this year, including promotional videos on massive screens at subway lines, in Beijing and elsewhere. The campaign includes a new Chinese-language version of the Australia.cn website, the first foreign tourism body to operate such a site in China, “with the assets and creative fully translated into Chinese”.

O’Sullivan says the tourism industry is now more China-ready, with Chinese-speaking staff on shifts and Chinese menus at hotels, and Chinese signage at airports, making the travellers feel comfortable.

There was a boom in Japanese tourism in the 1980s and 1990s, “but not on the scale or rapidity of this”, aided by the growing number of Chinese cities with direct flights. Visa access is now also much easier, with 10-year visas available for Chinese visitors.

Zhang Jianyue, 43, an office efficiency consultant in Beijing, and his wife Li Dan, 41, who has her own business producing air purifiers, spend a month every year travelling abroad.

Bao Yin, 35, is another regular visitor to Australia. She has a five-year-old son who as a baby was only fed on Australian milk formula.

Her husband’s younger sister has migrated to Sydney, for the environment and for better education for her child, and now runs her own property, tourism and financial planning firms.

“Many Chinese are investing in Australia, so many, prices are lower than here.”

Li says Chinese food is mostly too expensive and not so good in Australia. Bao complains that “you can (end up) paying $20 for a bowl of noodles in an Australian Chinese restaurant”.

They all agree that it is better to eat Western food in Australia, especially the seafood. Bao says: “Everything is big, our eyes brighten when we think of Aussie seafood.”

Li says the environment is the core attraction, “it’s free of pollution”. Bao agrees: “It’s so much better than Beijing.” Both say the people are very friendly. They, however, wish there were more signs in Chinese, as in Thailand.

In Amsterdam, Li says, “when you connect to WiFi in a hotel your screen will automatically display Chinese, but not in Australia. And WiFi is always free, almost everywhere else, but you still often have to pay there (in Australia).”

Bao says: “We can almost not survive without WiFi, without it we can’t know where to go, we need to link to online Chinese travel diaries.”

Li says she and her husband are both eager photographers, and “just enjoy walking round the streets taking photos. We also love nature.”

Zhang says this easily compensates for Australia “not having a long history … And the beauty spots are free; in China they will fence them and charge you.”

Bao was delighted to win $400 at a casino in Sydney, but was even more pleased to see parrots, and a mob of kangaroos standing in a field — “very lovely.”

She and her husband spend about $12,000 each on their travels annually, much of it going on products — half for their own use, half for family and friends.

She says she bought expensive shoes and a coat in Australia when the dollar was low. But Li says: “I have no desire for luxury brands. I take photos instead.”

They all constantly share holiday photos on China’s most popular social media platform, WeChat.

Yang Lin, a manager of a suburban mall branch of China International Travel Service, which is the country’s biggest operator of tour groups, says most of the tourists to Australia are in their 30s and 40s, with an average Australian trip lasting nine or 10 days — 14 days if New Zealand is added.

Typically, all costs are covered including meals. And the group tour members, usually about 20 people, prefer Chinese food. “They prefer everything to be cooked.”

These visitors “like to buy products”, she says, so substantial shopping time is locked into tour programs. “They feel safe in Australia,” so are prepared to walk around on their own in the evenings. “Their only worry is getting lost if they don’t speak English. But they are on tight schedules anyway.”

 

[ahojunk]

The Great Ocean Road is an icon of Melbourne.

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The Great Ocean Road reopens one month after landslides forced its closure
OCTOBER 8 2016
Alexandra Laskie

The Great Ocean Road has reopened almost a month after it was closed due to landslides and flooding.

The popular tourist attraction closed on September 14 when severe weather and floods triggered more than 150 rockfalls, landslides and fallen trees.

Landslides along the Great Ocean Road forced the roads closure. Photo: Joe Armao

Colac incident controller Belinda Marchant said the last remaining road closure between Wye River and Separation Creek had been reopened.

A spell of temperate weather allowed VicRoads to fix road barriers at the base of what is known as Paddy's Path on Friday night.

https://twitter.com/x/status/784567102158102528

Monitoring equipment has been installed along the affected stretch of road that will alert VicRoads to any movement that could result in further road closures.

Ms Marchant said it was a "dynamic situation" and risk of further landslides remained.

"Geotechnical assessments remain ongoing and emergency services continue to monitor the conditions," she said.

Speed limits have been lowered to 40 km/h and traffic has been reduced to one lane, with manned traffic signals operating in sections of the Great Ocean Road, including at either side of Paddy's Path.

"The safety of the travelling public is of upmost importance and it is vital that users of The Great Ocean Road stay informed and plan their trips accordingly," Ms Marchant said.

"Emergency services, road and traffic crews have performed a significant amount of work to get the Great Ocean Road open for benefit of the local community and travellers touring the region.

The most up-to-date traffic conditions can be found at VicTraffic.

For updates on emergencies, visit Vic Emergency.

Camping ground closures can be found at the Parks Victoria website.