Canberra and Beijing ink $8.8b in commercial deals

Australia and China signed 10 commercial deals worth more than US$8.8 billion, strengthening economic ties during the Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping’s state visit to Canberra on Monday, Financial Times reported. The agreements are mainly in the resource and energy sectors, including China Development Bank’s US$1.2 billion investment in port and rail infrastructure for a new iron ore mining province in Western Australia. The deals are small, however, compared to a number of recent deals – including PetroChina’s (NYSE.PTR, SH.601857, HK.0857) decision to purchase US$43.88 billion worth of liquified natural gas from Western Australia’s Gorgon project. Xi Jinping, who is expected to succeed President Hu Jintao in the next two years, is China’s first high-level official to visit Australia since the arrest and jailing in Shanghai of four former Rio Tinto (NYSE.RTP, LSE.RIO, ASX.RIO) executives, including Australian citizen Stern Hu, for bribery and theft of commercial secrets. China is Australia’s biggest trading partner, with two-way trade surging 30% to US$72.84 billion in the year ending June 2009.