澳大利亚与中国于11月17日签署了一份意向声明，为中澳之间的自由贸易协定（该协定）谈判赋予了一个正式结论。双方目前将会开始准备用已签署的协议法律文本并履行正常的签署条约程序。该协定在草案被翻译及通过法律审查后最终将在2015年被签署。

当该协定正式生效后，将会有很多信息分析其对于目前达到1500亿的澳中双边贸易的影响。中国是澳洲最大的出口市场（在商品与服务方面）、占到了整个澳洲约三分之一的出口额。在该协议签署后澳洲的对华出口将毫无意外地出现上涨。举例来说，新西兰在2008年与中国签署的自由贸易协定使得其对中国的出口额从2008年的22亿新元上升到了2012年的86亿新元，上涨了近400%。新西兰的乳制品产业是自由贸易协定签署后受惠最多的行业、在2012年共占了出口总量中的28亿新元。紧随其后的是木材与肉类。

该协定对澳洲农业、资源行业以及服务业来说是个不容置疑的好消息，但本文将会重点为您阐述的是协定对于中国作为境外投资来源的影响，在澳的中国投资从十年前的30亿澳元上升到了如今的约320亿澳元，但这仍然只占到澳洲的所有外国投资的1.3%。

中国的中产阶级预计将在2030年时达到8亿5千万。中国正从包括澳大利亚在内的主要贸易伙伴中热切寻找增加产出的办法。这最终将不可避免地引起中国赴澳投资的增加，因为中国在寻求“把蛋糕做大”。中国在澳洲的投资目前主要集中于资源行业。可以预计，将来中国投资将会趋于更多元化、比如会分布于农业、商业用地、医疗与养老服务、零售业、旅游业和制造业。

该协定还对非敏感行业降低了投资审查门槛。对来自中国的私企来说，必须被外国投资审查委员会的审查的门槛金额从2.48亿澳元上升到了10.08亿澳元。这将促使中国赴澳投资进一步增长。

澳大利亚将需要应对中国投资者宣称在澳遭遇的“不信任”及“歧视”的不满。 过去为了缓和社会公众的疑虑，澳洲政府制定了澳大利亚外国投资审查委员会附加条件用于评估外国国企和主权财富基金的适用性。这包括：投资者相对于政府的独立性、投资者是否有清楚的商业目标、公司治理实践、投资是否可能竞争阻碍、不当集中或控制。这些附加条件导致了财务部对中国（或其他国家的）投资者强加了额外条款，其中包括：当地上市要求、澳洲董事数量要求、董事会会议及决定做出地的要求、以及合同必须遵循“公平交易”的特殊要求。这些措施都是为了防止反商业的行为以及“非公平交易”。

虽然所有的自由贸易协议一般都能适用于各种情况，这次的中澳协定预期将会随着时间发展有所变化。中国期望其国企能免除10 亿及以下投资受澳大利亚外国投资审查委员会的审查，这一点在这十年来的谈判中一直是个胶着点。澳洲政府坚持不管交易金额多少、澳洲政府会继续审查中国国企在澳洲的投资，该协定的签订不会改变这一点。这意味着，这个问题最终如何还取决于未来的谈判。中国无疑会催促澳洲政府最终就此做出让步，因为他们需要其国企（持续占到中国国民生产总值的一半以上）被允许投资澳洲公司、从而加速中国急需的知识与技术引入。

该协议规定的投资责任可以通过一项投资者与政府间的争议解决机制直接被中国与澳洲投资者强制执行，其目的是增加投资者信心。

随着该协议的开展，相信中国赴澳投资数量也定会同时达到前所未有的高度、而澳洲也正极度需要这些投资资本。

作者：Carl Hinze (豪力律师事务所布里斯班合伙人）

FTA a catalyst for injecting Chinese investment capital into Australia

On 17 November, Australia and China signed a Declaration of Intent formalising the conclusion of the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement (“ChAFTA” ) negotiations. Both sides will now prepare legal texts of the Agreement for signature and go through their normal treaty-making processes. The agreement itself will be signed in 2015 after the draft is translated and legally reviewed.

Much will be written about the impact that ChAFTA will have, upon entry into force, on Australia’s two-way trade with China, which currently stands at around $150 billion. China is Australia’s largest export market (for both goods and services), accounting for nearly a third of total exports. Australia’s exports to China will certainly increase under ChAFTA. For example, New Zealand’s free trade agreement with China, which it entered into in 2008, has seen New Zealand’s exports to China rise almost 400% from NZD2.2 billion in 2008 to NZD8.6 billion in 2012. New Zealand’s dairy industry has been the primary beneficiary of the FTA, accounting for NZD2.8 billion of the export total in 2012, followed by the wood and meat industries.

ChAFTA certainly has good news for the Australian agriculture, resources, and services industries, but the focus of this article is on the impact that ChAFTA will have on China as a growing source of foreign investment in Australia. Chinese investment in Australia has risen from $3 billion ten years ago to around $32 billion today, but this still only accounts for 1.3% of total foreign investment in Australia.

With China’s middle-class expected to reach 850 million people by 2030, China is eager to find ways to increase output from its key trading partners, including Australia. This will inevitably lead to greater Chinese investment in Australia as China seeks to increase the size of the pie. Chinese investment in Australia has been concentrated in the resources sector. We can expect to see greater diversification of Chinese investment in Australia into areas such as agribusiness, commercial property, healthcare and aged care services, retail, tourism and infrastructure.

ChAFTA will promote further growth of Chinese investment into Australia, by raising the screening threshold at which investments in non-sensitive sectors by private sector entities from China are considered by the Foreign Investment Review Board (“FIRB”) from $248 million to $1,078 million.

Australia will need to handle perceptions of mistrust and discrimination which have been held by Chinese investors in Australia. In the past, in response to public concerns, the Australian Government set out additional FIRB considerations when assessing applications by State-Owned Enterprises and Sovereign Wealth Funds. These included: the investor’s independence from government; whether the investor has clear commercial objectives; corporate governance practices; and whether an investment may hinder competition or lead to undue concentration and control. These additional considerations have led to the imposition of conditions (or ‘undertakings’) by the Treasurer on Chinese (and other foreign) investors. Such conditions include: local listing requirements; the number of Australian-based directors; where meetings and decisions by directors are made; as well as specific requirements that contracts be made on an arm’s length basis. These measures are aimed at preventing non-commercial behaviour and non-arm’s length transactions.

Although all FTAs are ‘living’ documents, ChAFTA is expected to evolve over time. A sticking point in the decade-long negotiations was China’s desire that its State-Owned Enterprises would be exempt from FIRB scrutiny for investments of $1 billion or less. The Australian Government has held firm on this, so under ChAFTA FIRB will continue to screen all investment by Chinese State-Owned Enterprises, regardless of the transaction size. ChAFTA does not change these arrangements in any way. That said, a final determination on this issue is expected to be negotiated in the future. China will no doubt urge the Australian Government to eventually allow its desired concession, since China wants its State-Owned Enterprises (which continue to represent more than half of China’s GDP) to be allowed to invest in Australian companies to hasten much needed technology and know-how transfer to China.

Further, the Australian Government has retained the ability to screen Chinese investments at lower thresholds for sensitive sectors, including: media, telecommunications and defence-related industries. And the Government will be able to screen investment proposals by private investors from China in agricultural land valued from $15 million and agribusiness from $53 million.

The investment obligations in ChAFTA can be enforced directly by Australian and Chinese investors through an Investor-State Dispute Settlement mechanism, which aims to promote investor confidence.

There can be little doubt that the unfolding of the ChAFTA will coincide with unprecedented Chinese investment in Australia in sectors where investment capital is very much in demand.

Author: Carl Hinze (Holding Redlich Brisbane Partner)