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CONVENOR (James Pearson, CEO, CCI WA): It's been another successful International Trade Day and can I acknowledge the support of Austrade, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and the Department of State Development.

Our aim in these days is to provide a convenient opportunity for Western Australian businesses to find out more about the ins and outs of import and export and help develop contacts in the field. And considering we had a cumulative total of more than 300 registrations for various parts of the day, I think we can declare this a success.

As usual, many hands make light work and it's no exception today. I want to thank our sponsors who are numerous, our exhibitors who have given their time to present to you all on their various offerings, and workshop presenters who have helped educate us through the day about the traps and the opportunities in the world of import and export.

I want to acknowledge also the Western Australia International Alliance who are co-hosts with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry for today's event. And also the travel firm — by Adventure Travel, who have provided the International Trade Day lucky door prize, which the minister has generously agreed to draw after his speech. So if you haven't put your card in the box here, you have only a few minutes left.

I'm happy to announce that next year International Trade Day 2011 will be held on Thursday, 25 August, so there's a safer date for you, well ahead. And I hope to see most, if not all of you, then.

I'd like to invite the minister to come to the podium to say a few words. Can I acknowledge one thing before he does that? It's well recognised and well understood in this state in particular that this state and this nation depends arguably more than many — if not any — others on a stable international political system and a strong commitment by governments of both political persuasions to expanding and freeing up trade and investment.

Quite simply, our country and our state depends and will for the foreseeable future continue to depend on free trade and free flows of investment, and I'm delighted that one of the features of the Australian political system through the years has been that we have been blessed with strong and effective foreign affairs and trade ministers. And I am sure you agree with me that the incumbent is no exception to that.

Will you join me in welcoming the Honourable Stephen Smith.

STEPHEN SMITH: Thanks very much, James; thanks for that kind introduction. Members of the Consular Corps, other distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.

I am very pleased to be here as Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade. I am also pleased to be here as the local Federal Member for Perth. The Chamber, of course, is one of the important institutions — in an economic and industry sense — which resides in my own electorate; and is one of the premier industry bodies in Perth in Western Australia, alongside the Chamber of Minerals and Energy and the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association, with which James has had an association in the past.

So I'm very pleased to be here. It's the fifth WA International Trade Day. And I think also earlier this year the Chamber itself saw its 120th anniversary; so another special reason to be here at the Chamber headquarters.

But trade, of course, and International Trade Day is very well supported, not just by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, but also by Austrade; and that's a good thing.

Trade, of course, is one of the things which has made not just the Australian economy, but the Western Australian economy strong. There are two things which have made Australia a prosperous, well-developed country. One is that it has always been an attractive place for capital investment, originally overseas capital investment, and now also Australian investment through superannuation funds, and also being a great trading nation.

It started off in raw products, whether it was wheat and wool and gold, and more recently iron ore, liquefied natural gas. But whether it's minerals and petroleum resources, whether it's education or other services, or whether it is elaborately transformed manufactures, it's been the strength of our capacity as a trading nation to grow ourselves into a strong well developed prosperous economy and a strong well developed prosperous society.

These days, of course, our trade performance is much more diverse than it used to be and that is one of the strengths of basing yourself in Western Australia. In the old days, of course, the economic adage used to be that if the United States sneezed then Australia got a cold.

We saw through the global financial crisis that our strength came in part from this diversity. Yes, of course, our links with the United States economy, including through our Free Trade Agreement with the United States, were very important. But our growing links with the ASEAN economies combined, also reflected by the Australia-New Zealand-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement; the exponential growth in our trade over the last decade or so with China; the exponential growth albeit off a low base, but India has been our fastest growing market for the last three or four years and very soon will be our fourth largest trading partner; and also some old favourites, whether it's the United Kingdom or the European Union.

So the diversity of this trade saw us very well prepared to cope with the global financial crisis. And that trade diversity is also reflected by investment diversity. Yes, it is the case that we see a lot of attention paid to Chinese investment in Australia, but China still sits in the second half of the 15 to 20 largest investors. People are genuinely surprised when one draws attention to the ongoing strength of United Kingdom and European Union capital investment in Australia.

So diversity of investment and also the diversity of our markets puts us in a very good position.

In terms of our trade priorities, of course free trade is something that has helped Australia enormously, but also helped in particular a State like Western Australia. I'm very confident that both in the bilateral free trade area, in the regional free trade area, and in the multilateral free trade area, Australia will continue to be at the forefront of opening up access to markets for Australian companies, and also arguing strongly that open trading arrangements do give the potential to individual nations, to regions, and to the globe as a whole to expand the capacity for economic growth and prosperity.

On the bilateral free trade front, we are optimistic that we can move very quickly to try and secure free trade agreements with the Republic of Korea and with Malaysia. On the regional front we're very strongly committed to continuing to progress the Trans-Pacific Partnership.  The TPP is a very good regional economic agreement to become a party to. And, in terms of our relationship with the GCC — the Gulf Cooperation Council — I see enormous potential in formalising our regional trading arrangements with the Gulf itself. And of course on the multilateral front, Australia, both individually and through the Cairns Group, continues to be at the forefront of pushing for an outcome on the Doha Round.

All of these individual areas will advance Australia's interests. At the same time of course we've got free trade agreement studies with India and Indonesia which we are very keen to transform and promote into formal negotiations, and of course with two of our biggest and most important economic partners, Japan and China, we have negotiations on foot which we are also very keen to progress.

So from that perspective, a lot of work continues to need to be done to continue to advance Australia's interests, to advance ourselves in our region and to advance ourselves in the world as a prosperous and successful trading nation.

In that respect, you have both my congratulations for the good work you've done to date but also my best wishes for your company and your industry for the future.

So thanks very much for the opportunity to speak to you tonight. It's been my great pleasure to turn up as the caretaker Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade to join with you and mark the success of the fifth successful WA International Trade Day.

Thank you.