Darwin plans to lure Asian money, tourists

Press, 9 May 1984, Page 16

Darwin plans to lure Asian money, tourists

By Brian Timms of Reuters in Darwin

Australia’s Northern Territoy, a vast mixture of rain forests and desert, is using casinos, free trade, and offshore oil as bait to lure Asian investors and big-time gamblers to the “last frontier.” For decades the development rush largely by-passed the territory at the “top end” of Australia. Now it is poised to ride the boom expected as part of the huge economic growth forecast over the next few years for the South East Asia and Pacific region. Darwin, the territory’s capital, is closer to most South-East Asian capitals than nearly all the major cities round the rest of Australia. The territory will become the link between Australia and SouthEast Asia, say officials. “We want to increase our investment links with Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and South Korea,” Mr Paul Everingham, the self-governing territory’s Chief Minister, told Reuters.

Asians are being tempted with new casinos, the opportunity to buy urban and farming land, investment in tourist and fishing projects, a possible free trade zone, and the spin-off benefits from a 200 million-barrel offshore oil find. There are increasing visits by Asian government delegations, including one recently headed by Mr Norio Tanaka, Japan’s Trade Consul in Australia. The population, although only 135,000, is growing at an annual rate of 4.5 per cent, mining production value grows at a rate of 30 per cent, manufacturing turn-over at 20 per cent, tourist growth at 15 per cent. At the moment the Northern Territory is not totally an investors’ paradise because of constraints on the mineral deposits, which last year brought in $B6B million. Mining companies are holding off on new exploration for fear of being halted in mid-project

by clauses in Federal laws giving up to half the territory’s land back to Aboriginals. The Federal Labour Government, wary of nuclear proliferation, has also clamped down on uranium mining in the territory, which contains 14 per cent of the world’s recoverable uranium ore. But there is the prospect that Darwin, rebuilt since being wrecked by a cyclone nine years ago, could have a free-trade zone in which tariff and other arrangements protecting Australian industry could be bent a little. “We are not planning to turn Darwin into a Hong Kong or Singapore with a duty-free shoppers’ paradise,” said Mr Allan Morris, the territory’s Co-ordina-tor-General. The idea is for a zone for economic activities without the requirements and cost disincentives normally associated with moving trade across international boundaries. “Businessmen could import into the zone components, or products

in some partial form, which could be stored or manipulated — and manipulation might mean anything from substantial processing or manufacturing through to simply repackaging or relabelling,” Mr Morris said. He said duty would only become payable when the commodities in their “manipulated” form were exported from the zone into the Australian market. “If they are sent overseas and, in effect, become a re-export, no duty would be payable at all because they would not be entering the Australian market,” Mr Morris told Reuters. His department will in the next few months submit plans for the zone to the Federal Government in Canberra, which must give final approval. “We have already had approaches from a number of potential investors interested in the growth that is taking place in South-East Asia in regard to high technology, but looking for a more I congenial investment location,” Mr Morris said.

He said that a manufacturer of computer software, for instance, could have the labour-intensive parts made outside Australia. The high technology element could be completed in Darwin and the finished product marketed back into South-East Asia or possibly Australia. The links are already strong, with more than half of the territory’s imports coming from Asia and the leases on 16 vast cattle stations held by South-East Asian interests. Malaysians have also put money into projects for the half a million tourists who come annually to the territory, partly to see Ayers Rock, the world’s largest monolith. The Japanese are interested in helping finance a new $630 million Darwin power station. New casinos planned for the territory would bring in the “highest of high rollers,” the sort of people who would risk a million on a fall of dice, Mr Everingham said.