I have just completed a two day visit to Indonesia for the APEC Finance Ministers’ Meeting.
In addition to the Finance Ministers’ Meeting I held productive bilateral talks with my counterparts from Indonesia, China, Singapore and Korea.
The APEC Finance Ministers agreed to a joint proposal from Australian and Indonesian partners towards developing a regional infrastructure financing market.
We agreed to concrete steps to establish:
- a Public Private Partnership centre in Jakarta to drive infrastructure investment in Indonesia, supported by
- an Expert Advisory Panel made of technical experts from APEC economies, business, and development banks.
These key initiatives target the major infrastructure problem in the region, where economically viable projects fail to attract adequate funding from investors.
These infrastructure initiatives agreed will:
- help deliver the estimated $US8 trillion to 2020 of infrastructure investment in Asian economies necessary to support current levels of growth;
- provide opportunities for Australian savings and infrastructure related businesses; and
- encourage longer-term and more stable investment flows into the region at a time of increased financial volatility.
Australia is now under new management. We now have a Government focused on the long term interests of our economy, sending a message to the world that “Australia is open for business.”
These initiatives are not short term fixes – they are part of a multi-year APEC commitment to infrastructure.
Australia looks particularly forward to working with China as they seek to take these proposals forward into their APEC host year in 2014.
As part of the meeting, Australia, along with Korea, Singapore and New Zealand, signed a statement of intent to develop the Asia Region Funds Passport. This is a definitive and practical step to ensure that savings in the region can be invested in the region.
I congratulate Indonesia for hosting a successful APEC Finance Ministers’ Meeting and for progressing these initiatives with Australia and other countries.
I am also pleased to expand the partnership between my Department and the Indonesian Ministry of Finance by inviting staff from Jakarta to come to Canberra to work on secondment in the Australian Treasury. This builds on an existing successful arrangement where Australian Treasury officials are working in the ranks of the Indonesian Ministry of Finance.