Australian ambassador Dr. Geoffrey William Raby paid a visit to PD Online's Strong China Forum and answered questions raised by netizens on the subject of "Cementing and Developing Friendly Australian-China Relations" in Beijing on May 29.

Australian ambassador Dr. Geoffrey William Raby paid a visit to PD Online's Strong China Forum and answered questions raised by netizens on the subject of "Cementing and Developing Friendly Australian-China Relations" in Beijing on May 29.

On the issue of economic cooperation, the ambassador held China and Australia are complementary in terms of economic cooperation and the economic complementation between the two countries should be based on the rich natural resources in Australia and great demand of raw material and resources from China. Since the establishment of diplomatic relations 35 years ago, the economy and trade between the two countries has witnessed considerable development, particular the trade volume, which has made great stride forward.

At present, Australia exports iron ore worth of some 8 billion Australian dollars to China annually, taking up a considerable share of the total Australia-China trade volume.

Apart from cooperation in those fields mentioned above, there are also many new areas for the two to launch bilateral cooperation, for example, in terms of environment, especially in clean coal technology.

China has great demand on Australia's natural resources, and China poured its first batch of foreign investment in setting up an iron mine in West Australia in 1998. The ambassador voiced his confidence in the cooperation between Australia and China in this field.

By People's Daily online