Published by: World Tibet Network News, Friday, October 11, 1996

"The Age", Thursday, 10 October

By Catharine Munro, Sydney

The Australian Wheat Board has won a $10 million contract with the Chinese Government and does not expect trade problems following the Dalai Lama's visit last month.

"It shows relations with China are very good and very sound," the board's chairman, Mr Trevor Flugge, told journalists.

Last week, Australian companies remained quiet when Chinese officials criticised the Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, for his meeting with the Tibetan leader here.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry had said it would "unavoidably influence" the political, economic and trade relationship.

But Mr Flugge was confident it was business as usual with China.

"We don't expect that there are going to be any significant barriers to trade with China," Mr Flugge said when asked about last week's warnings.

Mr Flugge said the board had been conducting trade with China since the 1960s. He said he would be surprised if there were any serious disruptions to this relationship.

In a consortium with the construction company Transfield, the Wheat Board will build a grain storage depot in Fang Cheng City, which is in the southern province of Guangxi.

Winning the contract put the consortium in a sound position for a much biger project - worth about $250 million - that would be allocated by the Chinese Government next year, Mr Flugge said.

"It's very significant that Australia now has its name on the books and, in fact, holds us in good stead for another project which is really our aim in this exercise," he said.

Next year's contract is to build an importing and exporting terminal in Dalian City in the northern province of Liao Ning with a capacity of nine million tonnes.

The projects are part of a $1.2 billion revamping of infrastructure for grain transport throughout China and have been financed by the World Bank and the Chinese Government.

Mr Flugge said China's infrastructure was 25 years behind Australia's in terms of technology, and the plant in Dalian would resemble that at Port Kembla, which is still regarded as one of the world's most advanced.

Australia has an undertaking to export one million tonnes of wheat to China a year under a three-year agreement that ends after the 1997-98 season.

Submitted by abutler@pop.peg.apc.org>