The Foreign Investment Review Board's report for 2001-02 was released today by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer, Senator Ian Campbell.
The report outlines the activities of the Board, provides a summary of the year's foreign investment proposals, comments on the most significant cases and reviews trends in foreign investment in Australia and Australian investment abroad.
The report also has a number of appendices, including for the first time the Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers Act 1975 and the Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers Regulations 1989. Other appendices include the Foreign Investment Policy statement, the text of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and other supporting material on foreign investment policy.
Senator Campbell said the main points in the report were:
- Of the 4520 proposals decided during the year, 4443 were approved and 77 were rejected. This compared with 3301 approvals (2,298 with conditions) and 46 rejections in 2000-01.
- Approvals involved proposed investment --either alone or in partnership with Australians -- of around $118 billion. This represented an 11 per cent increase on the previous year's approvals of $106.3 billion.
- The value of approvals, excluding tourism, increased in the services sector to $49 billion in 2001-02 from $31.1 billion the previous year. Approvals in the minerals exploration and development sector decreased from $23.7 billion to $19.1 billion and real estate increased from $12.7 billion to $14.3 billion.
- The United Kingdom was the largest source of proposed investment in Australia in 2001-02, contributing $19.4 billion or 16.4 per cent. The United States and Singapore were the other major sources of proposed investment, accounting for around 15.8 per cent and 15.4 per cent of the total respectively.
The FIRB statistics relate to the administration of foreign investment policy. Major qualifications apply to these statistics, particularly the estimates of proposed investments. For example, the proposals approved might not be implemented and, if implemented, they could be over a period of years. The Board's statistics are substantively different from the Australian Bureau of Statistics data on foreign investment in Australia.
The report also comments on Australia's international investment position and Treasury's involvement in international investment policy issues in multilateral forums, such as the OECD and the World Trade Organisation, and bilaterally through free trade agreements and investment protection and promotion agreements..
The report will be formally tabled when Parliament resumes in February next year.
Copies can be purchased at Australian Government Info Shops and accessed at http://www.firb.gov.au.
The website also provides current guidance notes to help people understand their responsibilities under the Act and how to complete a foreign investment application.
PERTH
23 December 2002
Contact: Wayne Grant 08 9421 1755 or 0407 845280
Chris Legg, FIRB/Treasury 02 6263 3777