Skip to main content

Australia plans to enter top ten defence export countries

Australia’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull attends a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra. (AP)
The Australian government announced on Monday a new strategy to boost Australia into the ranks of the top 10 defense industry exporting countries within a decade.
The government will create a 3.8 billion Australian dollar (USD 3.1 billion) fund to lend to exporters that banks are reluctant to finance, Defence Industry Minister Christopher Pyne said. Australia is the 20th largest defense exporter with most of its exports including the Bushmaster armored vehicle and the Nulka missile decoy sold to the United States, Britain, Canada and New Zealand.
The aim of boosting Australia into the top 10 defence exporters was “very realistic,” Pyne said “Australia has a very sophisticated defence industry, but we’ve never had a government until this one that’s been determined to drive that into exports in order to grow jobs and the economy,” Pyne told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
Trade Minister Steve Ciobo said his government was not concerned that exported arms could be turned against Australia. “This isn’t about providing weapons or arms to rogue regimes or anything like that,” Ciobo told Nine Network television. “We’ve got strict controls and those controls make sure we only supply defense assets in the future to like-minded countries that have a strong human rights record and have protections in place.”
“We know that when countries are strong and others know that they’re strong, then the likelihood of there being conflict is, of course, reduced,” Ciobo added.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Venezuela seeks Interpol red alert for ex-oil czar Rafael Ramirez

Venezuela’s representative to the United Nations Rafael Ramirez poses for a photograph at the United Nations in Manhattan, New York, US. (Source: REUTERS/File Photo) Venezuelan authorities said on Thursday they were seeking an Interpol red alert for ex-oil czar Rafael Ramirez on corruption charges, heightening tensions between the former political heavyweight and the country’s socialist government. Ramirez, who headed the powerful oil ministry and state energy firm PDVSA for a decade, is a longtime rival of President Nicolas Maduro who has become more critical of his handling of the economy, now in its fourth year of recession. State prosecutor Tarek Saab said in a press conference that Venezuela was seeking the arrest of Ramirez for corruption tied to the period when he was commanding the world’s largest crude reserves. “No crying, citizen Ramirez … You have been pointed out by all, including by national public opinion, as one of the main embezzlers and culprits of the …...
Post a Comment
Read more

Beijing’s struggle against pollution will be tough, take time: Mayor

Beijing’s battle against air pollution will take time and be very tough to win despite recent improvements, the acting mayor of China’s capital said on Wednesday. The city has been fighting to clean its notoriously smoggy air through steps such as pushing households and factories to switch away from coal to cleaner fuels like natural gas. “Further improvement in air quality (will be) extremely difficult,” acting mayor of Beijing, Chen Jining, said in a statement released during the city’s congress meeting. The central government’s intense focus on air quality means many local officials’ careers are linked to the success of efforts to tackle smog, making it unusual to speak candidly about the challenges of meeting tough targets. Beijing has chalked up a short-term success by cutting the annual average level of breathable particulate matter (PM 2.5) to 58 micrograms per cubic metre in 2017, beating a target set by the State Council in 2012. However, the city is still some way f...
Post a Comment
Read more

Vietnam jails former oil execs in high-profile graft case

Trinh Xuan Thanh, center, is led to a court room by police in Hanoi, Vietnam, Monday, January 22, 2018. (Source: AP/PTI) A former oil executive was sentenced to life in prison and a former high-ranking Vietnamese government official received a lengthy prison term Monday at the end of a major corruption trial. The 22 defendants in the case were mostly current or former executives at PetroVietnam and were convicted of mismanagement, embezzlement or both in their tenures at the state energy giant. Former PetroVietnam chairman Dinh La Thang, the first Politburo member to be jailed in decades, was sentenced to 13 years in jail by the People’s Court in the capital Hanoi. He was accused of deliberate economic mismanagement that cost the state millions. Trinh Xuan Thanh, an ex-chairman of PetroVietnam’s construction arm, was given life imprisonment for embezzlement. Thanh was also convicted of economic management. Germany accused Vietnam agents of snatching him from a Berlin park l...
Post a Comment
Read more