The Federal Opposition has committed to making Australia a regional financial services hub in the event it regains office at the next Federal Election.
The Opposition spokesman on Financial Services Senator Mathias Cormann made the commitment last Friday, saying a future Coalition government "will pick up where we left off back in 2007".
"That is, we will work with all relevant industry stakeholders to leverage our skills and the strength of our domestic financial services sector to increase our exports of financial services and to make Australia one of the genuine financial services hubs in the Asia-Pacific region," he said.
Cormann said economic research by Access Economics had shown that lifting finance and insurance exports as a share of Australian GDP from the current 2.9 per cent to 5 per cent would lead to an eventual $3.7 billion stimulus to the Australian economy.
"According to the same research, if we were able to lift this export share to 10 per cent it would translate into a $13 billion boost to our economy," he said.
The opposition spokesman said the impact of such a move would also spread beyond funds under management.
"When fund managers domicile a fund outside Australia, we miss out on the revenue that would otherwise be derived from the broader range of complementary and enabling services that underpin the funds management industry including custody services, technology providers, legal, accounting, compliance and risk monitoring services," Cormann said.
