Australia’s Victoria State unveils its latest five-year China Strategy in Beijing on September 16, 2025. Photo: Screenshot of social media of Victoria State’s Premier

Jacinta Allan, Premier of Australia's Victoria State, on her first official visit to China as state leader, unveiled the state's latest five-year China Strategy in Beijing on Tuesday, declaring that it marks "a new chapter of an old story," aiming to boost multi-sector cooperation with China, according to a release posted on the website of the Premier's Office of Victoria State on Tuesday. 

Analysts pointed out that this move, made after a series of high-level bilateral engagements during the just-concluded China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) in Beijing, underscores another Australian push to deepen economic ties with its largest trading partner amid global uncertainties.

Victoria State's China strategy aims to boost cooperation with China in multiple sectors including agribusiness, health and life sciences, creative industries, sport, tourism, clean energy, and public transport, according to Allan's speech at the launch of Victoria's China Strategy in Beijing on Tuesday.

"Our goal is to become the first port of call for Chinese business to innovate and invest, and the destination of choice for Chinese people to visit and study," Allan said on Tuesday at the launch event of the strategy.

The Victorian premier highlighted education as her top priority, announcing the establishment of a new Education Working Group to facilitate two-way exchanges. Currently, Victoria has 142 partnerships with Chinese institutions.

Also on Tuesday, Allan spotlighted clean energy as a cornerstone, praising China's leadership in renewables.

She announced that a Chinese company will help deliver cleaner and cheaper energy for thousands of Victorian homes, as a $453 million renewable energy project in northeast Victoria will be built, according to another release posted on the website of the premier's office on Tuesday.

"China is the world's clean energy superpower, installing 100 solar panels every second - and Victoria is benefiting. My China Strategy is all about investments like these that cut our bills, lower our emissions and create new jobs," said Allan.

Meanwhile, the premier emphasized China's importance as Victoria's source of international visitors and No.1 trading partner. "Two-way merchandise trade was valued at almost $200 billion yuan ($28.1 billion) in 2024," said Allan.

China is not only the biggest trading partner of Victoria, but also Australia's top trading partner, export market, and import source for 16 consecutive years, official data showed.

Bilateral trade reached $113.9 billion in the first seven months of 2025. Bilateral trade reached about $312 billion in 2024, accounting for almost one-third of Australia's exports, official data showed.

From 2022-2023, China-Australia trade boosted Australian household's disposable income by A$2,600 ($1,733) on average and created 595,600 jobs in Australia, representing 4.2 percent of total employment, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

Ample opportunities abound for China-Australia economic and trade collaboration. The complementary strengths of their economies position China and Australia as ideal trading partners. Enhanced cooperation can transform bilateral complementary strengths into robust shared growth, with data speaking itself, analysts and Australian business representatives told the Global Times recently.

One of the latest examples was the active participation of Australian companies in this year's CIFTIS. Australia was the guest country of honor at the 2025 CIFTIS, leading its largest-ever delegation to the event.

"Australia has a great opportunity to ramp up exports to China and deepen cooperation in high value-added and knowledge-intensive industries in trade with China as the world's second-largest economy pushes for the digital, intelligent and green transformation of services trade," Dale Pinto, president and chair of the board of CPA Australia, an Australian accounting organization, told the Global Times at the CIFTIS.

China and Australia have seen rapid growth in trade since 2024, fueled by high-level engagement at both the government and business levels, highlighting the strong complementarity between the two major trading partners, Song Wei, a professor at the School of International Relations and Diplomacy at Beijing Foreign Studies University, told the Global Times.