Flying the flag for US investment

Companies from the US may dominate foreign investment in Australia, but businesses from both sides of the relationship still need to be reminded about the opportunities.

That is the view of Canberra-based US chargé d’affaires James Carouso, his nation’s top official in Australia, at least until a new ambassador is appointed. Mr Caruso last week led a delegation of key business leaders to Perth to get better acquainted with the local people and opportunities.

The technology oriented group, including executives from 3M, GE, KBR, Cisco, AECOM and Salesforce, focused its visit on some of Western Australia’s related infrastructure, such as the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre, Curtin University-based Cisco Innovation Centre Perth, Centre for Entrepreneurial Research and Innovation and Edith Cowan University’s Security Research Institute.

Mr Caruso said the trip was a fact-finding mission to meet key government officials after the recent WA election, and see the local economy first hand after the boom.

“Most US companies tend to invest in Sydney and Melbourne, and what we are trying to do with the American Chamber of Commerce in Sydney is remind our companies that there is another part of the continent,” Mr Caruso told Business News.

“We decided to come here after the new government had time to get organised so we could meet the new premier and his cabinet.

“On the east coast there is a lot of discussion about what has happened in WA with the decline of the minerals and energy investment boom, and we wanted to see if things have recovered.

“What is interesting is it hasn’t been negative growth, it is still positive growth, so it’s an interesting thing for most of the world to say positive growth isn’t enough even after this incredible growth you’ve just had.

“It is funny how negative the reporting has been about how things have been here, so this has helped us all better understand the situation.”

Mr Caruso was also keen to remind everyone that the US remained a major investor in Australia, with $860 billion, around 10 times that of China at $87 billion.

“One reason WA is such a powerhouse of exports is the amount of US investment it attracted to help develop those resources,” he said.

“We are by far the largest investor in Australia and if you talk to our companies they would like to continue to keep investing as they see opportunities.”