The Sydney Olympic Games have provided Australia with enormous opportunity to further its plans to become a global financial centre, Joe Hockey, the Minister for Financial Services & Regulation said today.
"The Olympics have unquestionably delivered to Australia unprecedented opportunities for the development of our financial centre," the Minister said.
"Extensive media coverage by the 3,200 non-sport journalists in Sydney has delivered extensive coverage in the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Bloomberg, CNBC, CNN and a range of financial publications across the world.
"This has reassured global executives of companies that have moved operations to Australia over the last two years.
"Banks like UBS, Royal Bank of Canada, JP Morgan, and Citgroup have recently established regional operations in Australia.
"During the Olympics Goldman Sachs announced that their Asia Pacific e-commerce headquarters will be in Australia.
"This follows Lab Morgan's announcement of their e-commerce hub for Asia will be in Australia. Deutsche Bank also announced that one of only two world foreign exchange hubs would be in Australia - and all cited Australia's technology and human capital as key influences on their decisions.
"The true benefits of the Olympics will be delivered over the next few months and years.
"But its no use having a company like Visa bring 300 international banking executives to Australia for the Olympics and let them leave with only a good impression.
"Over the next few months I will be joining with Axiss Australia and the State Governments in increasing the tempo of our offshore promotion of investment in Australia.
"We want more jobs, more business and more investment.
"No doubt, the greatest Olympics ever has provided us with an even better story to tell."