RER GG

17/09/2026

Anthropic has signed an agreement to lease capacity at a massive data center project planned near Dalby (in the Western Downs region of Queensland, near Toowoomba). This action has lifted up the local property price by 26% for the last 12 months. (Published 16/9/2026)
Key details regarding the project structure and figures:
*The $32 Billion Figure: The overall project—known as the Western Downs Digital Park—is valued at approximately $31.9 billion (US$22.2 billion) and covers 725 hectares. Anthropic is not directly spending $32 billion itself; rather, it is leasing capacity to act as the primary anchor customer for the first stage of the site.
* Developer: The facility is being built by Singapore-based developer Zerra DC.
* Purpose: The Queensland site is expected to focus on AI inference (processing live user queries for Claude) rather than heavy model training.
* Timeline & Status: The initial stage is targeted to come online around 2027, though the project is still undergoing local council approvals.
* Power Supply: The park is planned to connect to the nearby Braemar power station. The announcement follows a state decision to allow fossil-fuel generation (including gas/coal grid support) to ensure power security for large-scale data centers.

05/09/2026

25/08/2026

According to the latest statistical data from the Australian Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) and the FY2025–2026 Chinese Investment in Australia report jointly released by KPMG and the University of Sydney, the distribution of key data on Chinese investors in Australia is as follows:

Commercial Investment: FIRB figures show that in the mid-to-early stage of FY2025–26, approved commercial investment proposals from Chinese buyers reached $7.8 billion, spanning commercial real estate, mineral development, and the services sector. According to the latest 2026 report by KPMG and the University of Sydney, actual completed Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) in Australia stood at $964 million in 2025. Investment was primarily concentrated in critical minerals (accounting for 51%), commercial real estate, and renewable energy, with private enterprise investment accounting for 71%.

* Residential Real Estate: Following a substantial increase in application fees (for instance, the fee for properties valued between $1 million and $2 million rose to approximately $28,000) and the tightening of purchasing policies, the scale of Chinese buyers' investment in the residential market has shrunk significantly compared to previous years. Over the past financial year, the total proposed investment by Chinese investors in the Australian residential market was approximately $1 billion. Compared to the peak of $31.9 billion in FY2015–2016, the scale of Chinese buyer investment in Australia's residential market has contracted by nearly $31 billion; however, it remains the largest single source of foreign capital in the Australian residential market.

25/08/2026

KPMG Australia officially announced a workforce reduction of approximately 5%, affecting 27 partners and around 360 employees.
Key Details Behind the Cuts
*Affected Areas: The vast majority of the redundancies target the consulting and business services divisions. Consulting revenue dropped nearly 17% over the past financial year. In contrast, core audit, tax, and legal practices were largely spared from the major workforce cuts.
* Partner Impact: Alongside the exit of 27 partners, average equity partner distributions are being cut by 13%.
* Driving Factors:
* Audit Scandal Fallout: The firm has faced severe pushback following whistleblower allegations that confidential client information was used to win audit contracts. KPMG voluntarily paused bidding on Australian federal government contracts until late September while independent reviews take place.
* Subdued Economic Outlook: Client spending on third-party consultants has slowed significantly across both public and private sectors. Newly appointed CEO John Sams stated that the firm expects growth to remain constrained until at least 2028.
* AI & Structural Shifts: Executive leadership cited the rapid adoption of AI altering how professional services are delivered as another contributing factor to structural changes.
Initial media reports earlier in August speculated cuts of up to 1,000 positions, but the firm's confirmed restructuring landed at roughly 387 total roles (staff + partners).

19/08/2026

Japanese corporate giants move on Melbourne to fund housing fix
While a decade ago a tidal wave of Chinese wealth left the city’s apartment market overwhelmed and oversupplied, the latest forays of Japanese capital are seizing on the city’s waning supply of housing against a surging population.
And housing experts have warned there is no hope of fixing Victoria’s housing crisis without the international influx.
At one of Melbourne’s newest housing meccas, the Northborne estate in Wollert, Australian developer YourLand has signed a joint venture partnership with Osaka, Japan, based corporate giant Hankyu Hanshin. It’s the first time the firm will have backed a Victorian development site, and YourLand head of sales Adam De Pasquale said the result of their financial input would be parks, streets and sewers being built faster and far earlier in the project than they otherwise might have been if they’d relied on local funds.
“I think they are going to have a massive part in what our Victorian housing market looks like in the next little bit,” Mr De Pasquale said.
“We need the housing. We have great population, but we just can’t build the homes fast enough, so the eyes are on there to be able to come and supply us with more homes.”

With some of the state’s biggest builders, including Metricon and NEX Buidling Group, also now majority owned by Japanese firms, it’s probable that many of the homes that will be built in the 650-home, 66ha, $700m Northborne estate will also be getting input from Japan.
While Mr Temlett said it was more likely to occur as educated joint ventures, rather than takeovers, the result would be similar though smaller in scale to the Chinese investment surge in Melbourne about 10 years ago.

18/08/2026

The Australian Financial Review on 16/8/2026 reports that Chinese insurance giant Ping An is preparing to sell its 50% stake in Sydney’s tallest office tower, the Salesforce Tower, for $900 million. This indicates that even Sydney's most prominent landmark has seen its value drop by roughly one-fifth from its peak four years ago.
Construction on Sydney's Salesforce Tower began in 2018, and the building was officially completed in November 2022. The remaining 50% stake is held by co-owners including Lendlease (holding 20% through its unlisted fund) and OUE REIT (which acquired a 19.9% stake), with the smaller remaining shares previously linked to Japanese investors such as MEC Global Partners Asia.
If completed as expected, Ping An’s exit plan will come three years after it first publicly signaled its intention to sell the property—a time when rising interest rates began driving down commercial real estate prices. Ping An had previously shelved sale plans after receiving multiple offers it deemed too low.
Key Factors Driving the Sale
* Decline in Valuation: The $900 million sale price places the entire tower's valuation at $1.8 billion. This represents an approximate 20% drop from its peak valuation of around $2.2 billion in 2022, when funds managed by Lendlease acquired their stake. Three years ago, Ping An rejected offers valuing the building at $2 billion as being too low; current market conditions mean its final exit price sits well below those declined offers.
* Broader Market Reset: Commercial property valuations worldwide have fallen sharply due to higher interest rates and shifting demand for office space, forcing major international insurers and pension funds to offload real estate assets at a loss.

08/08/2026

Countries like Indonesia and those in Africa (such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zimbabwe, and Namibia) are implementing export restrictions on raw minerals to shift their economies from simple resource extraction to value-added industrialization.
This trend, often called "Resource Nationalism," is a deliberate strategy to capture more of the wealth generated by the global "green" energy transition rather than remaining mere exporters of cheap raw materials.
Why Countries Are Changing Their Strategy
For decades, many resource-rich nations operated on a "pit-to-port" model: they extracted raw ores, exported them (often to China), and then re-imported expensive finished goods (like batteries or electronics) made from those same materials. Governments now view this as a cycle of "jobless growth" that they are actively trying to break.
1. Capturing "Downstream" Value
Processing raw ore into refined metal, battery precursors, or components increases its market value exponentially. By banning raw exports, these countries force foreign companies to build smelters, refineries, and manufacturing plants on local soil if they want access to the minerals.
* Indonesia (Nickel): Since its 2020 ban on raw nickel ore exports, Indonesia has successfully incentivized massive investment in local smelters, turning the country into a global hub for stainless steel and battery material production.
* DRC (Copper & Cobalt): As of August 2026, the DRC has banned the export of copper and cobalt concentrates to ensure that higher-value refining happens domestically.
2. Economic Diversification & Job Creation
Reliance on raw commodity exports makes a country’s economy highly vulnerable to volatile global price swings. Developing domestic processing industries creates:
* Higher-skilled jobs in engineering and industrial management.
* Infrastructure development (power plants, roads, and ports) required to support these industrial zones.
* Long-term tax revenue stability by diversifying the economy beyond mining.
3. Strategic Leverage in Global Trade
Critical minerals (lithium, cobalt, nickel, rare earths) are essential for the global energy transition. Because demand is surging, resource-rich nations realize they have geopolitical leverage. By controlling the supply chain, they can negotiate better terms with major powers like China, the U.S., and the EU, rather than being passive suppliers.
Is It Targeting China Specifically?
While these policies often affect Chinese companies—because China currently dominates the global mineral processing and refining sector—the bans are usually non-discriminatory in law.
In many cases, China has actually been the first to adapt to these new rules. For example, in Indonesia, Chinese firms were among the quickest to build refineries inside the country to comply with the new mandates, effectively maintaining their access to the supply chain while helping Indonesia industrialize.
The Challenges
This strategy is not without risks:
* Infrastructure Gaps: Many nations lack the reliable electricity, water, and transport networks needed for complex industrial processing, making production costs higher than in established hubs like China.
* Legal & Diplomatic Friction: Export bans can trigger lawsuits from mining companies or complaints to the World Trade Organization (WTO).
* Environmental Concerns: Rapid industrialization can lead to localized pollution, deforestation, and community displacement if not managed with high regulatory standards.

05/06/2026

Space X IPO prohibits investors from China and Hong Kong from purchasing shares;
In the future, deglobalization will intensify, with sectors such as technology, finance, energy, and healthcare each developing and operating defensively within their own spheres.

19/05/2026

https://stocks.apple.com/AvGfFQemHRwqAiskgibWnFQ

Australian ‌Treasurer Jim Chalmers said on Monday he had issued orders for six shareholders to divest their holdings in Northern Minerals (NTU.AX), following concerns that Chinese parties had tried to take control of the rare earths miner.