Figures released today by the Australian Taxation Office show that 86.4% of the nation’s agricultural land is held by Australians. Foreign interests hold 13.6%, whilst Chinese interests control just 0.4% of the total.
Figures from the Register of Foreign Ownership of Agricultural Land show that over half of all foreign investment in Australian agricultural land is held by the United Kingdom (52.7%), which has 27.5 million hectares, or 7.2%, of total agricultural land.
United States interests hold 14.8% of all foreign investment in land. This represents 7.7 million hectares, or 2% of the total.
The Netherlands, Singapore, China, Philippines, Switzerland, Jersey, Indonesia and Japan hold 21% of all foreign investment. Together, the top 10 countries account for 88.5% of all foreign investment in agricultural land.
The figures debunk claims by populist and fringe political groups about Chinese holdings of land. Just 2.8% of all foreign investment in land is Chinese, or 0.4% of all agricultural land. [Read more…]
Premier Peter Beattie is bitterly disappointed that the Federal Coalition left the sugar industry out of the Free Trade Agreement with the United States.