Investors
Australian Investors
The Australian Government is focused on mobilising more impact investment to support greater sustainability for SME financing in the Indo-Pacific. We are focused, in particular, on advancing climate and gender outcomes in our region.
Attracting Australian Investors
Australia’s prosperity and security is intimately linked to the prosperity and stability of its neighbours. Australia has much to offer the region through investment and trade, and we can play a key role in helping maximise the prosperity of our neighbours.
As outlined in Australia’s Southeast Asia Economic Strategy, Australia is well placed to accelerate our economic engagement with Southeast Asia. We have the potential to be a substantial investor due to our well-capitalised corporate sector, our deep and sophisticated capital markets, and our substantial national savings pool, including our superannuation industry.
Southeast Asia presents a lucrative opportunity for Australian investors. Southeast Asia is an economic powerhouse fuelled by favourable demographics, industrialisation, urbanisation and technological advances. Southeast Asia (as a bloc) is projected to become the world’s fourth-largest economy by 2040, after the United States, China and India, with an expected compound annual growth rate of 4 per cent between 2022 and 2040.
Opportunities in Southeast Asia extend beyond traditional investment targets, as the impact investment market continues to strengthen and provide investment opportunities that align with improved climate and gender outcomes. Australians can work with our Southeast Asian partners to sustain and protect hard-won development gains. Economic investment in decent jobs, inclusive products and services and the clean energy transition are critical to the region’s future. ADI is designed to attract co-investment into its investee SME funds and enterprises. The ADI trust itself is solely owned by the Australian Government and as such, does not accept investment directly into the trust.
Jennifer Buckley, managing director of Sweef Capital, said DFAT’s involvement “has been instrumental in deepening Sweef’s relationships with institutional partners and family offices, including from Australia, Canada and Europe”.
James Eyers, Australian Financial Review, 14 November 2022
If you are interested in ADI’s investment strategy and/or looking for impact investment opportunities in the SME funds emerging markets in South Asia, Southeast or the Pacific Islands, please reach out to us via email at blended.finance@dfat.gov.au.
Minister Conroy message for Impact Investment Summit:
The Hon. Pat Conroy, Minister for International Development recorded a message for the Impact Investment Summit in Sydney.
Video Transcript
I acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land, and their elders past and present.
This week is a sitting week here in Parliament, so I apologise that I’m not able to speak to you in person.
As the Minister for International Development and the Pacific, I spend a lot of time thinking about our diverse, vast region.
22 of our 26 nearest neighbours are developing countries.
And many of our neighbouring countries are growing rapidly, presenting huge trade and investment opportunities.
Australia’s Southeast Asia Economic Strategy to 2040 clearly demonstrates the deepening connection between Australia and the region.
Our peace, stability and prosperity are intimately linked with our neighbours. There are no two ways about it.
That ever-growing connection and complexity poses challenges.
But it also presents us with opportunities.
Last year, the Government released our International Development Policy.
Helping lift people out of poverty helps shape a region that is stable, secure and prosperous.
And when the people and the countries of our region share in the benefits of growth and prosperity, we all benefit.
In tandem with our new development policy, we released the Development Finance Review.
That review underscored the pivotal role that philanthropies, impact investors and institutional investors can play in scaling investment to achieve impact on a broader scale than Government grants alone.
Since then, the Government has established Australian Development Investments—a $250 million impact investing fund which is providing early and catalytic finance to promising climate and gender equality impact funds.
We found through its pilot phase that having the Australian Government as an early investor gives confidence to other institutions and the private sector to come in after us with additional impact capital.
To date, this co-investment has mostly come from outside of Australia.
We want to change that.
We want to bring Australian impact investors on board.
Because we want our engagement with the region to be a truly whole-of-Australia effort.
So, I’m excited to announce the Government has established the International Development Investor Group—the IDIG—made up of Australian foundations and family offices, with a strong interest to invest with impact in the Indo-Pacific region.
The Investor Group will connect Australian impact investors to DFAT’s pipeline of impact opportunities in the region.
DFAT will support deal origination, sharing due diligence, and market intelligence.
You’ll hear more about our growing Indo-Pacific impact investment portfolio today, and I encourage you to touch base with DFAT either during the summit, or afterwards.
I wish you all the best for an interesting and productive summit.
Thank you.