News

Australian and Chinese governments have settled arrangement to open aviation market between the two countries, Australian Minister for Infrastructure and Transport Darren Chester and Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment Steven Ciobo said in a statement on Sunday.

The statement said the new arrangements will remove all capacity restrictions between Australia and China for each country’s airlines, allowing Australian tourism businesses to take advantage of the largest and fastest growing consumer market in the world.

“We have also liberalised traffic rights and code share arrangements, which are important for Australian airlines. This will enable Australian and Chinese airlines to service destinations between and beyond both countries, and will allow them to take full advantage of their cooperative arrangements with their commercial alliance partners,” said Chester.

The two countries have seen a boom of direct flights in recent months. Air China, China’s national flag carrier, started its Chengdu-Sydney line in November this year, while China Southern Airline is expected to begin its Guangzhou-Adelaide service in December. Australia’s flag carrier Qantas also announced to relaunch its daily service from Sydney to Beijing in January.

Ciobo said there is unlimited potential for Australian tourism following this historic agreement.

“China is Australia’s fastest growing and highest spending international visitor market. More than 1 million Chinese tourists visited Australia in 2015-16 (up 22.3 percent from the previous year), and spent almost A$9 billion ($6.7 billion) during their stay,” he said.

The outbound China market is predicated to double to over 200 million travellers annually by 2020. “This agreement will help Australia snare a larger slice of that, creating more Australian jobs and economic growth,” said Ciobo.

Ciobo said China is Australia’s most valuable tourism export market. The year 2017 has been named Australia-China Year of Tourism.

Source:China Daily

Sydney and Melbourne property investors are increasingly heading north to buy new apartments off the plan in Queensland in response to better affordability, innovative design and, often, appreciably higher-quality builds.

“People are now doing a lot more due diligence with developments, and they’re liking what they’re finding in both Brisbane and the Gold Coast,” says Queensland CBRE director Nick Clydesdale. “There’s some good quality product here in prime locations, and it compares very well to what buyers are seeing in their home cities, and for substantially lower prices.”

It’s often a little different from the norm; quirkier, more ambitious, sometimes pretty aspirational and regularly incorporating the best of what developers have seen, or tried themselves, in the bigger cities.

Project marketers CBRE also have several new developments around Brisbane and all along the Gold Coast which are receiving a large percentage of buyers from outside Queensland, mostly Sydney and Melbourne.

“There have been a lot of buyers from interstate and offshore as well as locally,” says Nick Clydesdale. “People are now really interested in good real estate in prime locations and are often coming into the market for the first time as they’re so impressed by what’s being offered.”

The boom is spreading upwards from the Gold Coast too, with the massive investment in infrastructure there, including the light rail, extension to the heavy rail linking it with Brisbane and the upcoming 2018 Commonwealth Games.

Source: Domain

Australia’s central bank left interest rates unchanged at a policy meeting Tuesday, despite concerns that the resource-rich economy has slowed sharply in the second half of the year.The Reserve Bank of Australia’s benchmark rate was kept at a record low 1.5%, as expected by all 10 economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal ahead of the decision.

“In Australia, the economy is continuing its transition following the mining investment boom,” Gov. Philip Lowe said in an accompanying statement. “Some slowing in the year-ended growth rate is likely, before it picks up again,” he added.

 

Since taking up the role in September, Mr. Lowe has stressed the need to be flexible in interpreting the central bank’s 2-3% inflation target, saying spurring more household debt growth by lowering interest rates wouldn’t be in the public interest.

The country’s big banks this week raised rates on home loans outside of any official move. They cited rising funding costs because of higher global bond yields, and regulatory curbs aimed at keeping lending to local property speculators in check.

Mr. Lowe said Tuesday that Australia’s financial institutions are in a position to lend for “worthwhile purposes.”

Australia is currently enjoying the longest ongoing expansion in the developed world—25 years and counting. Some economists predict the economy will contract in the three months through September, as weakness in mining investment and a downturn in construction drag on growth. If that happens, it would be the first negative-growth quarter since 2011 when flooding shut down coal production in Queensland state. Third-quarter growth figures are due Wednesday.

Most economists don’t expect the current lull in the economy to extend into 2017, however, given recent gains in commodity prices—especially major exports such as coal and iron ore.

Mr. Lowe said Tuesday the higher commodity prices are “providing a boost to national income,” although they remain much lower than they have been in recent years.

Source:The Wall Street Journal

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