Governor of New South Wales, Margaret Beazley, arrived in Guangdong on August 17th. She is here to celebrate and further NSW’s “oldest and most active” sister-state relationship, with 2019 marking the fortieth anniversary of the sister relationship between Guangdong and NSW, China and Australia’s two biggest economies.

New lease of life for the sister state relationship

Although this is Margaret Beazley’s first visit to Guangdong, she has long been aware of the province due to various joint projects in the fields of trade, finance, education and tourism, and in her opinion, Guangdong had to be a modern province because of all the technology flowing from the province into NSW over recent years.

A number of renowned Guangdong-based tech companies have started to explore the Australian market and subsequently landed projects in NSW. Huawei, a leading provider of ICT, established both their National Innovation and Training Center and a Customer Solution Innovation Center in Sydney respectively in 2015 and 2018, contributing to innovation in research and development in Australia. In addition, BYD, the Shenzhen-based electric vehicle provider, has closed a deal with Carbridge, a major Australian ground transportation provider, to supply electric buses for Sydney Airport.

Beazley believes that innovative technology is the new focus point for cooperation between Guangdong and NSW since it's an area that is developing rapidly in both places. “Guangdong has a huge industry and a huge interest in innovative technology across all of those areas while New South Wales has very high level of specialization in medical technology in particular, but increasingly in other innovative areas of technology.”

The 27th Joint Economic Meeting to have strong focus on tech

Having arrived in Guangzhou, the capital city of Guangdong, Margaret Beazley found it to indeed be a convenient and modern city full of beautiful architecture, and dotted with gardens and parks. Regrettably she has little chance to enjoy the city to the full, with a tight schedule and a broad range of people to meet with. In particular she will meet with the Governor of Guangdong, Ma Xingrui, in the hopes of furthering communication and exchange.

Beazley said she has had a very productive discussion with Governor Ma and is excited that both of them hold trade, economic and people to people relationships in the same esteem; all very much central to the sister-state relationship. The NSW delegation also organised a large function during their stay in Guangzhou, gathering 160 representatives from the government, schools and companies in different business sectors such as manufacturing, finance and tourism, all of whom are fundamental for the partnership.

Beazley Margaret visits the Guangdong High People’s Court. Prior to Beazley’s appointment, she enjoyed a 43-year career in law and was the first woman to sit in the Federal Court of Australia. She said she felt excited to visit the courts during this trip. She believes every trade agreement represents a legal relationship and it is fundamental to understand the legal systems in each region as the cooperation between Guangdong and NSW becomes increasingly close. [PhotoGuangdong High People’s Court]

This sophisticated networking can be largely attributed to the strong cooperative mechanisms that Guangdong and NSW have jointly developed over the past 40 years. “We have a trade and investment office in Guangdong given that it’s such an important trading partner. And we also have a long-standing joint economic meeting between the trade offices of Guangdong and NSW held every two years. This year in October it will be in Sydney,” said Margaret Beazley.

As the 27th Joint Economic Meeting is approaching, Beazley anticipated that there would be a very strong focus on technological innovation this year. In particular, she said NSW is building a second airport in Western Sydney and developing a nearby suburb into a technological hub called Aerotropolis, and she believes this will bring both Guangdong and NSW an important opportunity to move their relationship to the next level.

Authors| Jasmine Yin, Zhou Hongdou

Editors| Olivia Ouyang, Simon Haywood