Treasury will establish a permanent team that will aim for Australia to become the financial services hub in Asia.
The team will include a high-profile individual to liaise between the government and industry to drive reforms internally and marketing externally, Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs Chris Bowen told delegates at the Investment and Financial Services Association conference yesterday.
"As a government we see it as our role to knock down the barriers to your competitiveness. That does mean that we have to work together to identify those barriers, and how we can best knock them down," Bowen said.
Last month during a financial services summit in Sydney, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced the establishment of a dedicated team within Treasury to promote Australia as a financial services hub.
Bowen said yesterday participants at the summit urged for a more extensive role of the new team.
"The view expressed at the summit was that we needed a permanent team, if you will - an Olympic-style bid, to form a liaison between the government and the industry, to drive the push for more foreign funds to come into Australia to be managed.
"This was an idea arising out of the summit that I thought had quite a bit of merit."
