The Queensland Government is launching a new Queensland-Japan Trade and Investment Strategy 2025-2028 to deepen ties with one of the state’s significant economic partners.
This is backed by a $18 million investment over four years, which is poised to turbocharge Trade and Investment Queensland’s market strategies and deliver real outcomes for exporters, innovators, and investors.
For the year ending May 2025, Japan was Queensland’s second-largest goods export market, with total exports valued at $14.4 billion.
Resources and agriculture remain the cornerstones of the state’s trade relationship with Japan, but the Minister for Finance, Trade, Employment and Training Ros Bates says it is determined to expand into high-value sectors that were previously overlooked.
The government’s new strategy addresses expanding international education, research, and innovation partnerships; growing Queensland’s food, agriculture, and agritech exports; boosting the State’s innovation, creative, and tech sectors; and, attracting investment into major infrastructure projects.
Trade missions
To kick off the strategy, Minister Bates will next week lead her second trade mission to Japan – this time with Queensland’s largest-ever delegation from the international education, training, and research sectors.
The trip comes a week after Western Australian Premier Roger Cook headed Japan for high-level talks for continuing collaboration on the clean energy transition, as reported by Mining.com.au.
Cook says Japan is a significant investor in Western Australia, with decades long partnerships in the state’s resources sector.
The meetings with government and industry stakeholders aim to reinforce Western Australia’s longstanding relationship with Japan.
In April, Herbert Smith Freehills and The Australian National University released the eighth annual report on Japan-Australia Investment.
The report is an in-depth analysis of Japan-Australia M&A transactions and partnerships throughout 2024, and identifies key drivers for the future that will influence the trajectory of the Japan-Australia relationship in 2025 and beyond.
According to the report, inbound Japanese M&A saw a ‘record-breaking’ 72 transactions and 55 partnerships during 2024, with total Japanese direct investment into Australia increasing to a record $141.1 billion.
These investments spanned many sectors including real estate, LNG, renewable energy and decarbonisation, technology, financial services, consumer goods, infrastructure, housing and services. The trends observed in 2024 demonstrate that Japanese capital and know-how remain crucial drivers of Australian economic growth and prosperity.
Meanwhile, the Future Fund is actively pursuing transactions in markets including Japan alongside a focus on domestic real asset exposures, as US policy continues to create volatility in global markets, as reported.
Speaking last month to the Committee for Economic Development of Australia at Shangri-La Hotel in Sydney, Future Fund Chair Greg Combet says the sovereign wealth fund’s alternatives portfolio is providing insurance against the uncertainty that has returned to investment markets.
The Premiers’ missions come ahead of his visit in September to World Expo 2025 Osaka, where the Western Australian Government joined the Commonwealth Government as a Gold Partner at the Australian Pavillion.
In October 2025, Western Australia will host the 62nd Australia Japan Business Co-operation Committee (AJBCC) Annual Joint Business Conference with the theme: Navigating New Realities – Turbulence, Transition and Technology.
Write to Adam Orlando at Mining.com.au
Images: AJBCC
