Friday afternoon, His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam met with Australia’s Prime Minister, the Honourable John Howard.  The meeting was held at the Commonwealth Parliamentary Office.

During the meeting, His Majesty thanked the Australian Premier for the hospitality accorded to His Majesty and delegation and congratulated him for hosting this year’s APEC meeting.  His Majesty and the Prime Minister noted the close relations between Brunei Darussalam and Australia and that there has been much progress on bilateral cooperation in areas such as trade, defence, education and air services agreement.  His Majesty stated that Australia continues to be one of Brunei’s main trading partners.  The Monarch also expressed pleasure in the fast development of the Brunei Darussalam-Australia trade relations and suggested for the two sides to continue to find ways in maintaining this progress.  On the academic and medical fields, His Majesty expressed his appreciations over Australia’s contribution in educating and training Brunei’s students and officials who have pursued their studies in Australia.  His Majesty expressed hope that the two sides can further expand cooperation in these areas.

Brunei Darussalam and Australia enjoy a warm relationship with strong and growing links across a range of areas.  Brunei is an important partner for Australia in the Commonwealth, APEC and multilateral organisations, including the UN and the World Trade Organization.  Apart from defence, three other major areas of relations between the two countries are education, business and the Halal food industry. 

In education and training, a strong relationship is being developed between the two nations.  There is keen interest to facilitate linkages between Bruneian and Australian education institutions, including increasing the number of Bruneian students undertaking Australian tertiary courses.  Each year, around 700 Bruneian students study at Australian educational institutions.  In the business sector, the Brunei Darussalam-Australia Business Council and the Australia-Brunei Darussalam Business Council were established in 1994 and 1995 respectively in response to the growing interest in trade and investment between the two countries. 

Australia was the first country to establish a bilateral business council with Brunei.  The Councils’ objectives are to foster friendship and understanding between the business communities of both countries, promote technical cooperation, trade, investment and tourism, and facilitate the development of new business strategies to enhance the business relationship between Australia and Brunei.  A joint Halal food production and marketing export initiative was announced in February 2005 during His Majesty’s visit to Australia. Under this initiative, both countries agreed to examine ways to develop a niche high quality Halal export industry combining Brunei’s stringent Halal certification standards with Australia’s reputation as a producer of fresh, high quality food products