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Australia is taking China for granted: Fortescu’s Forrest

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Fortescue Metals Group founder Andrew Forrest says the government needs to build a deeper relationship with China otherwise Australia risks losing opportunities with the Asian superpower.

Mr Forrest says Australia is not engaging with China “anywhere near enough”, citing a lack of senior ministerial representation at what Boao Forum for Asia meetings.

“I see other countries with their senior ministers and prime ministers out there selling their own countries and I look around and say where is my country,” Mr Forrest told reporters after speaking at a business lunch in Sydney on Tuesday.

“Now people don’t need our legal services, they can get them elsewhere.

“They don’t need our investment banking services, they can get them elsewhere.

“They don’t need our resources, our energy. They can get them elsewhere, so let’s not take it for granted,” Mr Forrest said.

“If you have got two people trying to sell you a car – exactly the same car, exactly the same price – you are going to buy it from your best mate or from some bloke you hardly know?”

The Boao Forum in China is modelled after the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland and hosts high-level meetings for leaders from government, business and academia.

Mr Forrest’s comments follow those of Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Secretary Dennis Richardson, who said last year that Australia’s footprint in China was lagging behind comparable Western nations.

“If you go back 15 or 20 years, we were leading the pack in terms of representation. We’ve now fallen off the pack,” Mr Richardson said in October.

However in March, the federal government announced a new consulate-general for Chengdu, the capital of China’s western Sichuan province, which would add to existing missions in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong.

Mr Forrest on Tuesday also repeated his criticism of the government’s mining tax, saying it would “knobble anyone else trying to be the next Fortescue”.

“That’s bad for your economy and it’s bad for the country,” he said.

Fortescue closed down six cents at $5.79.