Qatar land-grab angers Australians
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/qatar-land-grab-angers-bush-20110618-1...
Qatar land grab angers bush
A LARGE investment in prime Western District farmland by the Qatar government is increasing pressure for a toughening of Australia's foreign ownership rules.
Amid growing disquiet in the bush over the loss of national sovereignty, the Greens and independent senator Nick Xenophon have called for changes requiring the Treasurer to approve all foreign acquisitions of rural land above $5 million.
Assistant Treasurer Bill Shorten said he was aware of angst in some rural communities but said the Gillard government wanted to examine the scale of foreign ownership in Australia before deciding if reform was necessary.
Local stock and station agents estimate the Qatar government paid a premium of up to 20 per cent in order to secure the controversial deal, which involved three properties owned by local families and two - Merrimbula and Brierly homesteads - owned by the US-based Westchester Group.
''If this continues throughout the Western District it will dramatically change the structure of our rural communities. We can't allow open slather on our land; surely there have to be some guidelines,'' Mr Mckenzie said.
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Britexpat..
2 comments:
1. Glad I am not a sheep!
2. These are Strategic decisions to secure food supply. I always believed and still do; that the issue is not one of production but distribution. Big business has a lot to answer for!
Please read ..
http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/selling-the-farm/part1/
Frenchie..I agree it is a risky strategy; there seems to be a political dimension to some of the investments and not all seem to be based on the economics!
(not as I encountered most in job)
westerners are better educated, they have better vision. :P.
Rest all are ignoramuses :P
not surprise anymore!
mazin_23,
lol...sure, whatever makes you happy ;)
Nic- what you consider as naive is my point of view. cos according to me u r the one who is displaying naivety.
what education and knowledge i have achieved is far more superior then yours...
Nauru had natural resources at a much smaller scale but yes you can draw parallels between their & Qatar's economy.
Qatar is trying to invest but they have to be a bit more careful. I like this line, "the West is happy for Qatar to buy the milk but they aren't about to let it buy a controlling interest in the cow."
mazin_23,
It’s not so much about the age, but more about the naivety displayed in your points of view that suggests you might not gone as far as you should in your education ;)
NIC...now dats like a good boy..next time argue with kids of your age...ciao!!
frenchieman,
i just realized how old he is, no point arguing with wisdom ;)
Mazin--Look at the country of Nauru. They had the highest per capital income a while back. No debts, no credit. Exactly what you are describing as a great and stable economy.
i dont understand y the discussion is shifting from how rich the country is to what the individual citizens are doing??? lol
NIC-- personal debts can be tackled by a rich country. but when the whole economy is based on debt and interest then there is a problem which is in case many developed countries in the western world.
U base your opinion on statistics and calculation (which can go wrong) i base my opinion on what i see. only time will tell who is right.
Thank you Genesis. Let's hope it works. The bank offers are being toned down, but they are still out of line, and the longterm problem is that the flow of credit has been so free for so long it has become perceived as an entitlement.
Mazin--the rich-poor gap amongst citizens is a real problem and the source of resentment. As a Qatari recently put it so elegantly to me, some feel the nation has sold its soul for a Land Cruiser. The webpage calling for the day of rage in Qatar that never materialized attempted to play heavily on this resentment in hopes of creating unrest. Thankfully it failed.
mazin_23,
What Genesis just confirmed is an example of your "shallow perceptions".
It is always recommended to proceed, as far as possible, with Education ;)
NIC--guess you are not understanding what I am attempting to convey to you. i never compared Qatar to Japan. when you talk about long term you are never sure whats going to happen in the future. and japan is the best example of that. With all their strategies and planning they have failed miserably just by 1 natural disaster. so the whole point is that when you said long term even the best economies can fail.
who knows whats gonna happen to a country in long term.
no one can predict someones future when they are not sure about their own.
75% of Qataris are in fact on personal debts , frenchie is not making it up
In fact it's highlighted in the Qatar national development strategy 2011-2014 and that's why QCB Are taking measures now to curb that
mazin_23,
As I said, ignorance can fool and cause disturbance in the ability to see long term ;)
Don’t let yourself be fooled by shallow perceptions, study harder and you'll eventually get to understand what I am attempting to convey to you.
The best of Qatar is far far from being anything close to the worse of Japan!
It’s like comparing an ant with an elephant!
frenchie- two-thirds of citizens suffering from crippling personal debts.-----reference plz...
frenchie- wo-thirds of citizens suffering from crippling personal debts.-----reference plz...
NIC-- no one knows what will happen in long term neither you nor i...look at what happened in japan. one of the best economies in the world...look at their condition now.
and who told you Qatar is not preparing itself for the future??
mazin--tell that to the two-thirds of citizens suffering from crippling personal debts.
klaatu--lots of liquidity indeed. The test is if they can diversify before the LNG runs out, more deposits are found elsewhere, or alternative energy makes LNG irrelevant. But as I said, still an incredibly vulnerable economy. Look at Nauru. So far I would say the diversification process has been going OK. The land investments have mostly been in unstable countries that could simply nationalize it on a whim; the property investments in Europe have been largely in high-end money losers, which means bargain prices but at a risk of hemorrhaging money just like the old owners.
The problem is that Qatar cannot buy the things it wants/should, because countries like the US won't let Qatar buy things like utility companies, etc. They are trying to by stakes in UK banks, but that will be curtailed just like land purchases in Australia soon will be. In other words the West is happy for Qatar to buy the milk but they aren't about to let it buy a controlling interest in the cow. This is probably the biggest problem Qatar's diversification efforts face--that and whimsical desires to buy Western icons like the Savoy.
mazin_23,
Ignorance can fool and cause disturbance in the ability to see long term ;)
NIC--
Forget all the economical calculations and statistics. believe what you see. and according to what i see...Qatar is a damn rich country. whether they have less population or not they have enough money to feed their population for centuries...Qatar gives so many benefits to their citizens. they have state of the art infrastructure development, top-class universities, employment assurity for citizens. what else do you want in a rich country?
by the way is not a bit deceptive of the Australians to complain about the loss of national sovereignty?
Ask the aborigines!
mazin_23,
A country's "GDP" is not the same as its "GDP/capita".
Qatar has liquidity..lots of cash...debt is covered in essence against gas/oil production..year on year real growth...attractive for inward investment..conservative oil/ gas prices used for budgeting..
Massive purchasing of prime assets abroad to compensate for future diversification away from gas and oil.
Small populous. High GDP. = Rich.
Countries with high GDP's as total output tend not to have as much liquidity; high populations = high internal costs. Higher debt, massively higher internal costs and not as liquid hence bangladesh is relatively poor compared to Qatar despite the high GDP.
Something tells me the Sudan investment is not going to pan out any time soon.
lol...frenchie. u r saying qatar is poorer than bangladesh...hahahahahahahahhaa....mann cumon!!!
The thing is when it come to food security both Syria & Sudan are the preferred choices. HASSAD have only entered the Australian market after "difficulties" in both Sudan & Syria ( despite owning already more than 20,000 hectares on each) Hassad already has investments in Argentina , Turkey , Ukraine & Belarus
FM its all lies, all lies...LoL....well thats what 2012 Olympics is telling us!
mazin--what planet are you on? Qatar's national wealth is less than Bangladesh's.
Frenchie.....what is the point in having the worlds strongest army and all that intelligence when 19 men and a group of people sitting in caves can attack them.
watever it is qatar is the richest country in the world. and they have loooooot of money..they can buy anything that sells.
To add to LP's effort to put this in a larger perspective:
mazin--Qatar's currency is pegged to the dollar, it is a single-product economy, it has virtually no military to protect itself, internal debts owed by its citizens are massive, and it is ruled by a handful of people. These things make it one of the most vulnerable economies in the world. Nauru used to be the wealthiest country per capita too. Look at it now.
flor--Crisis is a relative term. The economy is growing and corporate profits are at the highest point in two decades. The wealthy have seen their aggregate wealth grow by 18%. The crisis is for the laboring and middle classes, who have lost their jobs in the economic transition.
Australia use to be a land of prison for the british army in historical times.
in fact it is the easiest countries to get citizenship. almost the entire population of the country is made up of immigrants and refugees. except the aboriginals of course.
US is not on crisis now?
Australia is suffering from a draught or is it not?
unfortunately USA is a credit based economy.. they dont have money of their own. Qataris have their own money. Recession can affect USA and bring its economy down, so can the stock market. but Qatar is not affected by any of those.
List of countries by external debt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_external_debt
List of sovereign states by public debt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_debt
It is not exactly a land grab :o)
The sale of agricultural land is allowed for under existing Australian law. This is a trend accross the world. China in particular, along with South Korea, Japan have all made agricultural purchases in Australia -with a view to feeding their populations.
Some Australian farmers are actually jumping at the chance to sell at a premium because they are not making any money from their farms.
What crisis?
is in crisis now? (if they have the money?)
External debts: US - US$ 98 billion, Qatar - US$ 48 billion. Now you can easily get the percentage from US$ 14 trillion for the US and US$ 100 billion for Qatar. While Qatar has about 50% external debts, the US have about 6% external debts.
But, of course, these are all lies.
Yours or their Olympics?
and internal debts included in the ranking? Just asking? If we talk about perception on who has the capacity and the eagerness to invest abroad (in this particular report)!
Jealousy and lies.
Exactly LP, well pointed out there.
Qatar ranks at position 73 with a 100 billion $US GDP, whereas the USA rank at number one with $US 14 trillion GDP. Who the hell told you that Qatar is rich?
Qatar is wealthiest country in whole world and has many more times money of australia. This is the future. Qatar can by any country as it chooses.
land grab?
was done above-board, what's the problem?
one misses the point that there are a US private firms also who own large tracts of land in Australia.
Then they could take everyone's passport, because no one would need one . . .
Qatar should buy the whole world and the Moon, then there would be no more visa necessary. Wherever you live, you already live in Qatar!
Some huge farms in Punjab to get right and proper in time quantity of wheat and other farm products..I m serious.Qatar Authorities should talk to some big farmers in Rudrapur in Nainital district to get regular supply of rice and fruits too..
thank god they can't get their grubby fingers on New Zealand land!!