(Sydney, 3rd Jul. 2015)

Mr. Jiang Zhengxin, Vice President of China Unicom

Mr. James Hudson, CEO of ACBC NSW,

Ms. Liu Ying, General Manager of China Unicom Australia,

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,

It is a great honor for me to attend today’s Grand Opening Ceremony of China Unicom Australia. First of all, I’d like to extend, on behalf of Chinese Consulate General in Sydney，my sincere congratulations.

The political and economic relations between China and Australia shows good momentum in recent years, as the two countries are important trade and investment partners for each other. China is Australia's largest import market, the tourist source country with most value and the largest source of international students and immigrants. China and Australia have great complementarities and an even closer partnership in economy. These complementary advantages become more reciprocal as we both look forward to win-win engagements.

It is worth mentioning that last November, Chinese President Xi Jinping paid a successful visit to Australia, during which leaders from both sides jointly upgraded our bilateral relationship to be Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and announced the substantial conclusion of the bilateral FTA negotiation, which led the bilateral friendly cooperation relations into best period in the history. And the formal signing of the Australian-China Free trade Agreement 2 weeks ago in Canberra, push the bilateral economic and trade cooperation onto a brand new stage. The strategic conception of “One Belt, One Road” initiated by President Xi Jinping, opened up even broader prospects for Sino-Australian cooperation. As South Pacific is one major direction of the ocean-going "21th-Centrury Maritime Silk Road" (MSR), Australia is the essential country on this Road. Through building infrastructure, increasing cultural exchanges, and broadening trade, the development of MRS will be further deepened and ungraded on the bases of existing bilateral cooperation between Australia and China.

Chinese Government encourages Chinese enterprises to invest and enhance their business operations in Australia, and China welcomes Australian investors to take part in China’s local projects. And we also hope that Australian counterparts will provide convenience and equal treatment for Chinese investors. We believe that a closer business relationship of reciprocity between China and Australia is always our common goal. A better understanding will come from closer relation of people to people from two sides. A mutual economic development will come from closer business exchanges of both countries. And a better mutual trust will help pushing our win-win cooperation to a broader sight and a further height.

As one of the three major telecommunications carriers in China, China Unicom operates a vast network covering every corner of China. It has set up overseas branches in more than 17 countries or regions and spread its network coverage of more than 100 countries worldwide. China Unicom has been ranked in the world’s top 500 enterprises for many years and is the only Chinese telecommunications enterprise listed on three stock markets of New York, Hong Kong, and Shanghai.

The trade volume in services between China and Australia in year of 2013-14 reached about 9.5 billion Australian dollars, in which Australia services export of nearly 7.5 billion to China and import about 2 billion from China. Although China becomes Australian top services export market, there still has a huge potential and development space compared with bilateral trade volume in goods of 137 billion US Dollars in 2014. So I am very pleased today to witness the launch of business in trade service and I really hope to see more activities and exchanges in bilateral trade services happen both in China and Australia in the near future.

The Grand Opening of Unicom today will provide local customers and market with more options of products and services, which could be helpful for a healthy competition in the market to improve better service quality. We hope that China Unicom will take advantage of this historic opportunity to work closely with Australian partners by optimization the bilateral resources and by upgrading the quality of the services which eventually benefit both countries and peoples.

Last but not the least, I wish today’s Event a great success and Good luck in future business!

Thank you.

( The Economic and Commercial Section in Sydney)