John Griffin, Australia's Ambassador to Romania

"I want to promote Romania as a potential destination for Australian investors"

2016-08-20 01:59:54 - From the Print Edition

In late June, Australia's non-resident Ambassador to Romania, John Griffin, paid his second visit to the local market this year, to host a reception showcasing Australian design and innovation in the fashion industry. On this occasion, the Ambassador told The Diplomat – Bucharest that the bilateral relations between Australia and Romania are "very positive", but there is still a lot of potential in terms of economic bonds as there are only 15 companies with Australian capital registered in Romania. Thus, he wants to promote Romania more as a possible investment destination for Australian investors.

"I have been impressed by the reforms that Romania has pursued and I see a lot of potential for improved economic ties [between both countries]," said the Ambassador. "I want to promote Romania as a potential destination for Australian investors, as Romania is no longer regarded as an emerging market, but as a mature Central East European one. Romania is progressing in terms of improving the environment and we applaud that. However, there are also some challenges and Australia has a lot of expertise and investment scope in areas that could be of interest to Romania, for instance, energy, agriculture, infrastructure and tourism. Australia has the third largest pool of investment funds under management."

The EU is Australia's largest investment partner and its second largest trading partner, the bilateral trade totalling 56.8 billion Australian dollars (more than 39 billion Euro) last year. In terms of merchandise trade with Romania, however, the figures are pretty modest, up to 173 million Australian dollars (almost 120 million Euro) in 2015, the main items exchanged including furniture, chemical products, electrical equipment, optical instruments and textiles. The Australian companies active in Romania are mostly SMEs, including Soprano Design, a mobile software development company, CPG Resources, which deals with transforming ore bodies into valuable commodities, Carey Mining, providing mining contract services to resource companies, and Aconex, which deals with online document management, web collaboration and project management software for construction, engineering and facility management. On the other side, in Australia, there are 35,000 citizens who identify as being of Romanian heritage.

The Ambassador also stated that Australia and Romania are like-minded in terms of international politics and security. "Australia does not belong to any automatic grouping the way most of the countries in the world do," said the Ambassador. "So, we can't make our way in the world based on automatic grouping, but based on countries that share
our values and interests. The EU represents the largest quantum of those values and so we care passionately about the European project and about our relations with the EU. In addition, we see Romania as one of the most pro-EU members. We have like-minded views on most issues internationally, politically and in security terms. We have cooperated together in places like Afghanistan, where Romania was a significant contributor to the International Security Assistance Force and Australia was the largest non-NATO contributor in Afghanistan."

John Griffin was appointed in July 2014 as Australia's Ambassador to Greece with non-resident accreditation to Bulgaria and Romania. He was also Australia's Ambassador to Hungary and Romania from 2011-2013. The Ambassador also visited Romania in early February this year.