Speech at BHP Celebration Dinner Event
WANG Fengzhong
Acting Consul General of People's Republic of China in Perth
（September 19th, 2023, Perth）
Hon Roger Cook, Premier of Western Australia，
Hon Madeleine King, Federal Minister for Resources and Minister for Northern Australia,
Mr. Luo Tiejun, Vice Chairman of China Iron and Steel Association,
Ms. Vandita Pant, Chief Commercial Officer of BHP,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen，
Good evening！
It’s my great pleasure to be here for the event. I would like to thank BHP for the kind invitation. Please allow me, on behalf of the Consulate General of China in Perth, to extend my warmest congratulations on BHP’s shipping of 3 billion tons of iron ore to China, which is really a great achievement to be proud of. Congratulations to the remarkable BHP team and the Chinese partners!
BHP’s relationship with China commenced 132 years ago. BHP began exporting iron ore to China 50 years ago. In 2014, BHP achieved the milestone of shipping 1 billion tons of iron ore to China. In less than 10 years, the shipment increased by 200%. China has become BHP’s largest single market and tonight we are here to celebrate BHP’s shipping of 3 billion tons of iron ore to China. What an amazing achievement!
While we celebrate here, I believe you would agree with me that such an achievement would not have been possible without the joint efforts made by BHP and the Chinese partners, without fast development of Chinese economy and China’s open-up policy, without the rapid on-going industrialization and urbanization of China or without relatively stable relationship between China and Australia.
Ladies and gentlemen，
Let me show you some figures: In the past 10 years, Chinese economy grew at 6.2% on average annually. Its share in global economic output increased from 11.3% in 2012 to over 18%. In the past 3 years under COVID-19, China achieved an average annual growth of 4.5%, about 2.5 percentage points higher than the world average. China’s trade in goods ranked the top in the world for six years in a row. On average, China’s contribution to global economic growth was over 30%, ranking first across the world. In the first half of this year, China’s GDP grew by 5.5%, which was among the top of the major economies in the world. The World Bank, OECD and IMF forecast that China’s economy will grow by 5.6%, 5.4% and 5.2% respectively this year. China will remain the power house of global economic growth. Besides all the impressive figures above, the most important thing I think, is the fact that China’s development and modernization is aimed at bringing common prosperity to the world and China’s tremendous domestic market has provided and will continue providing Australia and other countries with huge opportunities.
As a matter of fact, cooperation between China and Australia has been mutually beneficial and brought concrete benefits to people of both countries. China has long been Australia’s biggest trading partner, accounting for nearly one third of Australia’s trade with the world, as well as the largest source of tourist spending and international students. Australia has been an important trading partner and source of investment for China, with bilateral trade exceeding US $200 billion in 2022. China and WA enjoys long and solid friendship and close cooperation with China being WA’s biggest trading partner and largest export market for iron ore, lithium, nickel, gold and wheat. Last year, 83% of the iron ore and 97% of the lithium produced in WA were exported to China.
As we all know, a stable bilateral relationship is vital to bilateral cooperation. Fortunately, after experiencing some difficulties, relationship between China and Australia has stabilized, improved and developed ever since President Xi Jinping met with Prime Minister Albanese in Bali, Indonesia last November. This year marks 50 years since Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam’s historic visit to China, and now both sides are working closely to make preparations for Prime Minister Albanese’s visit to China later this year, which will undoubtedly become another milestone in bilateral relationship and will further improve cooperation between China and Australia.
Ladies and gentlemen，
This year marks the 45th anniversary of China’s reform and opening up. By opening up its door, China has made tremendous progress in development and, in this process, fully shared its development opportunities with countries around the world including Australia. Now China is pursuing Chinese modernization in all respects through high quality development, taking the 1.4 billion plus people as a whole into modernization. This will create enormous market opportunities for BHP, WA and Australia.
Last year, we jointly celebrated the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Australia. This year is the starting point of entering another 50 years of China-Australia relations. Standing at this new starting point, I am quite confident that BHP’s relationship with China will be further strengthened in the future and the goal of 4 billion tons , BHP’s next milestone of cooperation with China, will be realized soon.
May tonight’s event be a complete success.
Thank you！