State of the Chamber
With just two months until the end of the year (and the decade!), it is time again to reflect on the past few months and to share how we will make the most of the remainder of 2019.
News
Construction of Australia House by AustCham Shanghai is now close to completion and we are looking forward to moving into and opening this space next month. As a stand-alone seven story building in downtown Shanghai, Australia House by AustCham Shanghai will provide physical offices, co-working spaces, food & beverage outlets, retailers, event space and advertising & showcase opportunities for the Australia-China business community, a development we have pursued with ANKEN Group.
Today I am pleased to announce some major tenants that will be moving into Australia House alongside our Chamber team. Initial and ‘announce-able’ organisations include Tennis Australia, the Australian Football League (AFL), Business Events Sydney, SMATS Group, William Angliss, Knudsen & Co, and our long term charity partner The Renewal Centre who will be operating an F&B outlet Fresh Start. This is a great initial list that includes some Australian organisations doing exciting things in China.
We have co-working seats still available and some great spaces available through the building for dedicated offices. Please reach out to me directly at jack.brady@austchamshanghai.com if you are interested in basing your organisation in our hub and alongside some excellent brands.
AustCham Shanghai is due to move office in mid November and to celebrate the opening of our new home, we will host an Australia House Opening on Thursday, 28 November at 5pm. 2019 additionally marks the Chamber’s 25th anniversary and to celebrate we will be holding an anniversary cocktail party a short walk away at the Radisson Blu Plaza Xingguo Hotel following the Australia House Opening. Invitations are currently being sent out via email so be sure to RSVP at your earliest convenience to secure your spot to both the opening and anniversary event. Australians know how to party. Download the invitation flyer here.
Advocacy and Media
As you know, an integral part of our work here at AustCham Shanghai is ensuring we are advocating on the behalf of our Australia-China business community. In June we submitted a proposal to the new National Foundation for Australia-China Relations (NFACR). Drawn from consultation with our members, the submission included suggestions and ideas for reinforcement and growth of the Australia-China business sphere. In the period since our submission, I have personally met a number of times with Kevin Magee, Assistant Secretary China Economic and Engagement from DFAT, including alongside a panel of our members to discuss how we can evolve these proposals into actions.
To spread the word of Australia House by AustCham Shanghai and our NFACR proposal further I travelled with our Chairman Craig Aldous to Canberra late last month and met with various politicians across the Parliament. Craig and I focused on the importance of ongoing connectivity between Australia and China, stressing to the Government the often lack of understanding by Australians towards our largest trading partner. We also updated government stakeholders about market conditions and the sentiment of our membership.
We have also been more active this past month working with a number of our members on afeature profile on the Shanghai based Australian business community in Australia’s national newspaper The Australian and their special The Deal magazine pull out on China. I would encourage you to read The Deal in full for some great articles and business profiles, and also our reflections that sum up the changing face of Australian business operations in market and the evolution of our strategy here.
Elsewhere in media, our friends at Advance released their monthly Born Global newsletter on Shanghai, profiling a number of Chamber friends and members. You can read more here.
Membership
As you may have seen we have also launched a new membership category, called theAustCham Shanghai Alumni Alliance. The Alumni Alliance leverages the Chamber’s reach and allows Australian educated professionals the opportunity to network through social and professional events and gain access to exclusive promotional benefits. The Alumni Alliance will allow the Chamber to help forge greater links between the Australian-China business community and facilitate a warm, enduring friendship with Australia for our Australia-educated Chinese alumni. To all our newly joined Alumni Alliance members I want to say a very warm welcome and I look forward to connecting with you at an event soon.
Additionally, I want to take a moment to thank all who were able to spare some time to respond to our annual Membership Survey. Your feedback is important and was considered by the Board as part of our recent annual strategy day.
Events and Programming
This August, we were overwhelmed by the success and the fun of our ‘Under the Sea’ themed 2019 Great Australian Ball. The night raised 144,025 RMB for our charity partners. Thank you to all who contributed and additionally to the St James’ Place Foundation for their matching contribution on top of this figure.
We were also fortunate to be granted blue skies for our BlueScope Annual Summer BBQ on Saturday, 7 September. A huge thank you to our primary sponsor BlueScope, and to the Shanghai Bashers Cricket Team and Shanghai Dolphins Rugby Team who joined us for the day. A full recap of the event can be read here.
BlueScope were brilliant partners for the day having many of their corporate team and their families along. This is a model the Chamber seeks to grow next year, allowing member firms the opportunity to utilise our major events as team building events and corporate celebrations with an Aussie slant. We will be circulating our 2020 major event calendar in the next month to help better align much of this activity next year. If you are interested in partnering, please reach out.
In events upcoming we have the Shanghai Melbourne Cup on Tuesday 5, November and our firstAustralia-China Food and Beverage Forum on Friday, 8 November. The Cup is a great day to let your hair down while the F&B Forum will curate some top notch brands and speakers and connect new market entrants with China based organisations.
