E&OE
25 March 2009, Panda Research Centre, Chengdu, China
Interview with Sichuan TV and Sichuan Daily
JOURNALIST: So you’re about to leave Chengdu tonight. Over the last two days, what has been your feeling about this city?
STEPHEN SMITH: Well, I’ve been very impressed with the city, very impressed with Chengdu. I’ve also had the chance to inspect some of the surrounding earthquake damage and I’m very pleased that Australia’s been able to play a role in assisting in the reconstruction. But I’m also pleased to visit the panda park because we’re looking forward to two pandas arriving in Australia before the end of the year. This will be very good for tourism between Australia and Sichuan Province.
JOURNALIST: OK, so what do you plan to do after you’re back to Australia?
SMITH: Before I go to Australia, I’m off to Chongqing tonight and then Thursday and Friday in Beijing for a Strategic Dialogue with Foreign Minister Yang. So I return to Australia on Friday night. It’s been very good to start my visit in the west. There’s a lot that Australia believes we can do with Sichuan Province.
JOURNALIST: I heard you had a breakfast with Australian business representatives. So what have you talked with them about?
SMITH: I spoke to industry representatives of companies already active in Chengdu and in Sichuan Province. They are very impressed with the potential to do business in the west, and I encouraged them to continue that. And when I return to Australia, one of the things that the Australian Government will be doing will be looking at ways of encouraging further Australian companies to come to the province to invest and to deal directly with west China.
JOURNALIST: Do you plan to do more cultural communication between the two countries?
SMITH: Well, last night when I met and had dinner with Party Secretary Liu, we spoke about the potential for greater tourist and cultural exchanges between Australia and Sichuan Province, and to me there’s a lot of tourist potential in Chengdu. I also went to see the historical irrigation system, so the Party Secretary and I believe that as a priority we can explore enhancing the tourist relationship between Australia and Sichuan Province.
JOURNALIST: OK, thank you.
SMITH: Thank you.
JOURNALIST: I’m a Sichuan Daily journalist. My question is why is it you’re considering strengthening the relationship between Australia and the western part of China?
SMITH: Well, it’s important that Australia sends a message that we view China as being more than just Beijing and Shanghai or just the eastern seaboard. And because China is such a large country, with a very large population of a billion people, there are many centres throughout China, from the eastern coast to the western border where economic relations between China and Australia can take place. So we can get lots of opportunities throughout China which Australia and China can take advantage of to our mutual interest.
JOURNALIST: My second question is, I noticed that you visited two hospitals on this trip to Chengdu. The first was the largest hospital we have, the Hua Xi Hospital. The second was a hospital that was just being constructed. Do you want to improve cooperation in the area of health between Australia and this region?
SMITH: The hospital I visited yesterday, I visited because that’s where Cochlear, which is a great Australian company, is doing a lot of good work helping young Chinese boys and girls to recover their hearing. So that’s very important and good work that an Australian company is doing with China. The hospital I visited today was, of course, a hospital destroyed by the earthquake and Australia is taking part in helping to rebuild the hospital. So that is part of our contribution to reconstruction after the earthquake. But more generally, Australia has very high expertise in health and hospital care, particularly in specialist areas like recovery of hearing, child and maternal health care. So we do think that there is a lot that Australia and China can do in the health area. Of course, in Australia, there are people who practice Chinese traditional medicine and very many Australians try to take advantage of that, so that has been a longstanding exchange of health and medical practices between Australia and China.
JOURNALIST: OK, thank you.
SMITH: Thank you.
[ENDS]
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