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With Chinese investors regularly in the news of late, a leading economist has now urged the federal government to consider far greater migration from Asian nations.
Paul Bloxham, chief economist at HSBC Bank, said larger pools of migration from Asia could prove a boon for the economy and offset the pending cost of retiring baby boomers.
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Mr Bloxham’s rationale was that Asians tended to be younger, better educated and came with skills that Australia needed. Asian people, he argued, already had a history of successful integration and could help strengthen our economic ties to many of our most important trading partners.
“Strong migration flows, particularly from fast growing Asian nations, could help Australia deal with its demographic challenges and also strengthen links with the fastest growing economies,” Mr Bloxham said.
However, Mr Bloxham agreed that any substantial increase in migrants would need to be supported by increased housing, infrastructure spend and social services.
Mr Bloxham’s comments also mirrored those of RBA governor Glenn Stevens recently when he said that Australia was facing a worker and skills shortage (not to mention the cost impost) as increasing numbers of baby boomers retire from the workplace and are not quickly replaced.
Any increase in Asian migration could also prove an opportunity for brokerages who have, in recent times, adapted their businesses to cater to Asian investors and migrants.
One of these is aggregator group Vow Financial. Such is the importance of the Chinese market to Vow that its chief executive, Tim Brown, recently revealed he was taking lessons in Mandarin. “The Chinese market in Australia is growing – it’s 15 per cent of the market today. It could get to 20 per cent or 30 per cent over the next two or three years and it’s such an important piece of our growth strategy,” Mr Brown recently told The Adviser.
