On his first official overseas visit as Premier, Mike Baird this week visited Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing.
In Shanghai, Mr Baird announced a Chinese tourism delegation will visit the Vivid Sydney Festival next year as part of the NSW Government’s plan to double the value of Chinese tourism to NSW by 2020.
Mr Baird also briefed a financial services roundtable in Shanghai on a new initiative to promote Sydney as a trading hub for the Chinese currency.
Mr Baird attended the signing in Guangzhou of two historic agreements between TAFE NSW and Chinese universities that secured a unique relationship between TAFE NSW and China.
Also in Guangzhou, Mr Baird met Guangdong Governor Zhu Xiaodan, who will visit Sydney later this month.
This year marks the 35th anniversary of the sister-state relationship between Guangdong and NSW.
ECONOMY CONTINUES TO GROW
The National Accounts released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday revealed the NSW economy remains the fastest-growing of all the states.
The figures showed State Final Demand in NSW grew by 3.6 per cent during the last financial year.
The annual result was driven by a strong result in the March quarter, which was revised up from 2.4 per cent to 2.7 per cent.
The positive result came despite a 0.4 per cent drop in demand during the June quarter.
WESTCONNEX TAKES ANOTHER STEP
The Australian and NSW Governments are getting on with delivering the WestConnex motorway, calling for expressions of interest to build the M5 - King Georges Road Interchange upgrade.
The M5 - King Georges Road Interchange Upgrade will create more than 100 new jobs during construction and increase capacity on the eastbound on-ramp and westbound off-ramp between King Georges Road and the M5 East.
We are getting on with building both WestConnex Stages One and Two at the same time to ensure we create thousands of new jobs, grow the economy more quickly and bust congestion in our cities which is costing the economy billions.
Also this week, the new design improvements for the 10 kilometre Bringelly Road upgrade have been released for community feedback – both governments have committed $509 million to expand the road from a two-lane to a minimum four-lane divided road with a central median strip.
