Bosses gather for business forum
More than 300 of the world's senior business figures, including Shell chief executive Ben van Buerden and media mogul Rupert Murdoch, are descending on Sydney for a conference on jobs, investment and economic growth.
The B20 Australia Summit started in Sydney last night ahead of a series of open and private discussions involving influential corporate bosses, policy advisers, lobbyists, economists and politicians.
The participants are hoping to bash together policy recommendations to be considered by the G20 meeting of the political heads of the world's biggest economies.
The G20 will meet in Brisbane in November.
The Sydney conference is being chaired by Perth-based businessman Richard Goyder, chief of WA conglomerate Wesfarmers and the ultimate boss of the giant Coles and Bunnings retail groups.
Mr Goyder said the B20 was "the most significant gathering of business leaders in Australia ever" and hoped its recommendations would contribute to global economic growth and job creation.
It comes amid growing debt in Western economies and signs of slowing economic growth in China, which has underpinned the world economic development for the past decade and softened the blow of the global financial crisis.
A survey released yesterday showed that Australian consumer confidence had been eroded by Budget cuts and worries about the downturn in resources investment.
Resources industry players are warning that Australia's labour costs and shortages of skilled labour risk making the nation uncompetitive in attracting money to bankroll resources and infrastructure projects.
The B20 leaders have identified four priority areas - structural flexibility, free movement across borders, effective regulation and integrity in commerce - as key areas for reform.
Mr Goyder said structural flexibility did not mean sacrificing labour conditions for workforces.
"When we talk about structural flexibility we are talking about a whole bunch of things, from the ease of exporting and importing product, the challenges sometimes of employing labour across different markets, to the way we set up our education systems," he said.
Mr Murdoch, News Corp chairman and an advocate of liberalised migration to boost economic growth, will take part in a public seminar today on the role of business in shaping public policy.
He will be joined by Mr van Buerden and influential Russian economist and lobbyist Alexander Shokhin, who heads the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs.
The head of the conference's human capital task force, GE Mining boss Steve Sargent, said the B20 summit would recommend that G20 governments adopt policies freeing the movement of investment funds and labour across borders.
He tipped there would be parity in a lot of jobs between developed and developing countries in the next five to 10 years. Some salaries in India and China would begin crossing over with those in western Europe and the US.
"I think demand for skills is going to be the driver," he said.
A set of policy recommendations could be handed to Prime Minister Tony Abbott as early as tomorrow, when the conference ends.
