Foreign Investment Review Board
Report 2000-2001
Main Points
Changes to Membership
- Ms Janine Murphy left the Board in August 2000 to take up a three
year posting to the Australian Embassy in Washington.
- Mr Peter Biggs was Executive Member from August 2000 to 12 January
2001.
- Dr Jim Hagan succeeded Mr Biggs as Executive Member.
2000-01 proposals in summary
- Of the 3,347 proposals decided:
- 3,301 were approved (2,298 with conditions, mainly in the real
estate sector) and 46 were rejected. There were 3,907 approvals
(2,737 with conditions) and 96 rejections in 1999-2000.
- There were no divestiture orders.
- Approvals involved proposed investment (either alone or in partnership
with Australians) of around $106.3 billion. This represented a 36
per cent increase on the previous year's approvals of $78 billion.
Approvals do not necessarily mean investments proceed.
- The value of approvals increased in the services sector (excluding
tourism) from $25 billion in 1999-2000 to $31.1 billion in 2000-01.
Approvals for minerals exploration and development increased from
$10.1 billion to $23.7 billion and real estate increased from
$9.5 billion to $12.7 billion. Resource processing had a sharp
decline from $5.5 billion in 1999-2000 to $0.9 billion in 2000-01.
- The 137 largest proposals (each with proposed investment of more
than $100 million) accounted for about $90 billion or about 85 per
cent of total proposed investment.
- The United States remained the largest source of proposed foreign
investment in Australia during 2000-01 accounting for around 45
per cent of the total. The other major source was the United Kingdom,
its proposed investment in Australia increased to $22.7 billion
in 2000-01 or 21 per cent of the total. This represents a 97 per
cent increase from $11.5 billion in 1999-2000. The next largest
contributors of proposed foreign investment were Germany, Canada
and Hong Kong with proposed investments valued at $4.7 billion,
$3.6 billion and $3.1 billion, respectively.
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