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Building China back up

heavy infrastructure spend to stimu- China with ease or travelling from China their supply and export arrangements
A late the Chinese economy could to here with ease to progress business and their commercial relationships with
rejuvenate commodity prices once the relationships and business deals. It is China.”
coronavirus is contained. the same for suppliers in mining equip- Potential new investment opportuni-
At the time of print, it was still too early ment who need things manufactured in ties between China and WA being nur-
for experts to determine whether the vi- China. I think best information is a cou- tured before the virus outbreak have
rus had peaked or not, despite the num- ple of months before things return to been suspended for the time being.
ber of new infections dropping to below normal.” “As you can appreciate, the nature
2,000 on February 18; the first time it Handley, also a senior partner at Mint- of Chinese business relationships at
had done so since January. er Ellison, said he was working with his the early stage requires face-to-face
China’s National Health Commission mining clients on addressing workplace contact, but we look forward to getting
said the death toll on the mainland had duties to staff on the ground in China or on the ground when the time is right,”
reached 1,868, with 1,886 new infec- people returning from China. Handley said.
tions confirmed for a total of 72,436, ac- “We’re helping people deal with staff Handley said the Australian Govern-
cording to a Reuters report. that have come back from China in the ment’s dedicated health site and Smart-
Strict travel bans to and from China first 2-3 weeks before the travel ban was Traveller were the best platforms for
remained in place in late February and a implemented and how they might need people to stay abreast of the coronavi-
return to business as usual was uncer- to take steps to quarantine staff at home rus situation.
tain upon curtailment of the virus. to ensure they are protected from the vi- At the time of print, some workers had
“People here [Australia] don’t need to rus. We are receiving a lot of questions slowly started returning to their day jobs
be overly-alarmed, the virus is affecting about workplace health and safety obli- albeit in a restricted capacity as employ-
people on the ground in China and with gations,” Handley said. ers impose procedures to minimise fur-
the steps the Australian Government has “We’re also giving lots of advice ther spread of infections.
taken here the chances of significant in- around contractual issues, with some While the rate of infection had showed
fection spreading throughout Australia of our export clients who are currently signs of slowing down at the time of
is pretty minimal,” Australia China Busi- exporting products to China particularly print, Macquarie Group division direc-
ness Council (Western Australia) presi- in the bulk commodity space wanting to tor, resources Hayden Bairstow said the
dent Adam Handley told Paydirt. understand the extent to which force ma- market would be quick to react once the
“In terms of normality, it depends jeure might be claimed under particular virus was contained and expected a rise
which sector you are in. A return to nor- contracts by their Chinese counterparts. in demand for base metals.
mality for clients in the mining space We’re helping them in understanding “If it starts to slow down the market will
means people being able to travel to how they might minimise the impacts on pretty quickly start to price in its conclu-
sion and we will be back to normality,
but certainly we can see what the gov-
ernment in China is doing; they will in-
frastructure their way out of it to get the
economy back,” Bairsyow said.
“How long it takes for consumer
spending and confidence to come back
for cars and all that sort of stuff is much
harder to predict.”
ANZ (WA) head of loans and special-
ised finance Megan Joyce said China
would need to restock its commodities
chest when it started building again.
“I think the ANZ is a bit more positive
on that and see it as more of a short-term
blip, no doubt it will impact industry here
and in China. But when they do come
back and factories are back online, they
will need to restock and that is when we
will see prices back up. Once again, it
will be harder at the smaller end who are
struggling through that price period, but
over the medium-term we expect it to be
better,” Joyce said.
– Mark Andrews

Adam Handley

Page 12 MaRCH 2020 aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT