DPC travel outcomes report: Jacinta Allan’s 2025 travel to the People’s Republic of China

Information about costs, purpose and outcomes of the Premier’s travel to the People’s Republic of China in September 2025.

On this page

• Travel details
• Expenses
• Purpose of travel
• Benefits of travel to the State of Victoria
• Next Steps/Follow Up

Travel details

Expenses

Includes combined expenses for Minister and accompanying travellers.

Purpose of travel

From 14-20 September 2025, I undertook official travel to China, visiting five cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Chengdu, and Deyang.

I travelled to promote closer education, trade, investment, tourism, and people-to-people ties with Victoria’s largest two-way trading partner and number one source of international visitors.

This trip also provided an opportunity to launch Victoria’s China Strategy: For a New Golden Era with key organisations and stakeholders in-country, helping to immediately kickstart Victoria’s new framework for engagement with China for the next five years.

Benefits of travel to the State of Victoria

This trip was my first official visit to China as Premier of Victoria. My program primarily consisted of meetings with industry and government stakeholders to renew Victoria’s longstanding friendship with China.

In Beijing, I launched the new five-year Victoria’s China Strategy: For a New Golden Era, which seeks to position Victoria as a national leader for engagement with China and a destination of choice to visit, learn, innovate, and invest; and centres community ties as a core tenet of the Victoria-China relationship.

Benefits of this trip to Victoria were in line with the key objectives of the Strategy, including:

• Supporting government, industry, and community to direct effort towards outward economic engagement with China that drives economic growth. This included:

• Meeting with the Governor of Jiangsu to support Victoria’s oldest sister-state relationship.
• Meeting with the Party Secretary of Sichuan to support sister-state ties ahead of the 10th anniversary of that relationship in 2026.
• Launch of the Direct From Victoria e-commerce campaign with Dingdong Fresh, a major Chinese grocery home delivery app, to promote Victorian produce to Chinese consumers.
• Re-opening of Vic House in Shanghai as a dynamic inmarket showroom and trade promotion facility to strengthen economic collaboration by highlighting Victorian exports, and providing a platform to facilitate Victorian businesses’ engagement with key distributors and stakeholders in China.
• Meeting with Chengdu restauranteurs and distributors in Victoria’s sister-state of Sichuan to promote Victoria’s premium red meat and other agricultural products.
• Witnessing a new MoU between Assemco (Victoria) and KN (China) to enable more components of Melbourne’s new G Class trams to be built in Victoria.
• Announcing the order of four new Tunnel Boring Machines from the China Railway Engineering Equipment Group (CREG) for the Suburban Rail Loop.

• Strengthening Victoria’s reputation as a global destination for Chinese visitors, students, researchers, and investors. This included:

• Witnessing the signing of a new Education Working Group Memorandum of Understanding with China’s Ministry of Education, which will establish an annual forum for direct education cooperation with China’s national ministry.
• Launching Visit Victoria’s new ‘Every Bit Different’ tourism campaign in China, including an additional $43 million investment boost to Visit Victoria.
• Meeting with the Chairman of Sichuan Airlines to promote ongoing direct flights between Melbourne and Chengdu.
• Announcing that RMIT University and the Shanghai University of International Business and Economics have commenced the formal process to form a Joint Institute, which will elevate their longstanding partnership and deliver more high-quality Australian-accredited programs for students in Shanghai.
• Witnessing signing of five new MoUs between Victorian and Chinese universities and TAFEs to promote institutional partnerships in the higher, vocational, and international education sectors.
• Announcement of Trina Solar’s $453 million Battery Energy Storage System project in the Kiewa Valley, which will install 500MW of battery capacity and create jobs.

• Elevating connections with Victoria’s Chinese community to amplify the State’s multicultural identity, enrich lives of all Victorians, and unlock new avenues for collaboration with China. This included:

• Announcing the Hamer Regional Scholarships Program alongside the Strategy, providing opportunities for Victorian tertiary students living in, studying in or from regional Victoria to immerse themselves in Chinese language and culture, and creating the people-to-people ties across all of Victoria and China needed for future success.
• Announcing a new MoU between Museums Victoria and Chengdu Museum to promote ongoing cultural exchange.

Next Steps/Follow Up

Specific next steps following my visit include:

• Establishing the Hamer Regional Scholarships Program
• Operationalising the Education Working Group with China’s Ministry of Education
• Delivering trade activations at Vic House following its reopening in Shanghai, to support Victorian exporters’ reach in China
• Delivering a program of activities in 2026 to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Victoria-Sichuan sister-state partnership

An implementation plan for Victoria’s China Strategy: For a New Golden Era will be developed to leverage outcomes achieved during my travel and guide delivery of ongoing activity under the Strategy.

Committed actions under the Strategy

Open all

• Agribusiness

• Leverage government- to-government and industry partnerships to strengthen Victoria’s reputation as a preferred supplier of safe, healthy, and premium agricultural products
• Better capability and understanding of China’s market, regulations, and consumer trends across Victoria’s agribusiness sector
• Uplift industry capability and support for agribusiness bodies, including through market training and insights
• Victorian businesses and educational institutions are supported to strengthen innovative partnerships with China in agricultural technology and sustainable practices.

• Health and life sciences

• Strengthen export readiness of Victorian industry
• Enhance attraction of clinical trials and related investment activity in Victoria
• Support joint research translation and commercialisation pathways with Chinese firms
• Partnerships with leading Chinese medical research institutions and companies are facilitated across priority focus areas.

• Creative industries and sport

• Promote and build demand for Victorian creative and sport industry capability and content
• Strengthen connections and opportunities for creative and sporting institutions, organisations and businesses
• Support Victorian creative and sports industries with regulatory and market readiness.

• Education

• Strengthen employment pathways for students by using business and community links
• Build a strong value proposition for Victoria’s TAFE network in China
• Support Victorian providers to establish transnational education programs in China
• Promote Victoria as Australia’s safest and most welcoming destination for international students.

• Visitor economy

• Deepen government-to-government engagement for joint tourism promotion
• Support destination marketing and industry partnerships to increase awareness of Victoria as a premium visitor destination
• Encourage greater dispersal of Chinese visitors across Victoria
• Facilitate further air connectivity with China and enhance ‘gateway services’ at Melbourne Airport in collaboration with the Commonwealth.

• Innovation and investment

• Foster joint development and deployment of clean economy solutions
• Develop innovation platforms to identify and pursue collaborative opportunities
• Attract innovative and high-tech industry investment to Victoria.

• Community

• Support Chinese Victorians to pursue public leadership positions
• Support the Chinese community’s inclusion, safety and belonging in Victoria
• Improve Chinese language access and communication

• Cultural exchange

• Promote and celebrate the history and contribution of Chinese Victorians through cultural exchanges
• Support cultural, creative and educational institutions to attract and develop new cultural experiences, reach new audiences, and provide skills development opportunities
• Strengthen existing and facilitate new local government partnerships in China to support people-to-people, economic, and cultural exchanges.

• Literacy and capability

• Develop and implement a statewide ‘China Capability Development Framework’ for industry and government
• Work with Victorian universities and civil society organisations to uplift China expertise and capability in Victoria
• Promote Chinese language and cultural literacy in schools and tertiary education.

Governance

Updated 16 December 2025

About the VIC Government

• The Premier and ministers
• Find a Vic Gov department, agency or service
• Strategies and policies
• Inquiries and royal commissions

Grants and programs

Jobs and careers

• Apprenticeships Victoria
• Finding a job guide

Arts, culture and heritage

Business and the workplace

• Mentally Healthy Workplaces Framework
• Portable Long Service Authority
• Victoria’s racing industry
• Workforce Inspectorate Victoria
• Liquor licensing, sale and supply

Communities

• Children
• First Peoples - State Relations
• Finding records
• Gender equality & women’s leadership
• LGBTIQA+ equality
• Multicultural communities
• Seniors Online
• Veterans support and commemoration
• Volunteering in Victoria
• Youth Central

Education and training

• Victorian Early Childhood Regulatory Authority
• Early childhood education – information for professionals
• Kinder: Best Start, Best Life
• Education – information for parents
• Schools.Vic - information for schools
• Education grants, programs, awards and events
• PROTECT
• TAFE, training and universities sector
• TAFE Victoria
• Victorian Skills Authority
• Apprenticeships Victoria
• Learn Local

Environment, water and energy

• Building Victoria’s circular economy
• Recycling Victoria home

Finance and economy

• Economic Growth Statement

Health and social support

• Family violence reform
• NDIS Worker Screening Check
• NDIS and disability services and support in Victoria
• Patient Review Panel
• Transforming Trauma Victoria

Housing and property

• Housing Registrar
• Opening doors
• Know Your Council

Law and justice

• Adoption
• Births, deaths and marriages
• Honorary justices
• Machete ban
• Safeguarding Victorians against terrorism
• Stolen Generations Reparations Package
• Victims of Crime
• Victorian Racing Tribunal

Safety and emergencies

• Emergency Recovery Victoria
• Victorian Emergency Relief and Recovery Foundation
• Emergency Recovery Resource Portal
• How well do you know fire
• Fire Services Reform
• Water safety
• Marine Search and Rescue

Science and technology

• Data sharing and open data
• Data.vic - discover and access Vic Gov open data
• Developer.Vic - portal for API developers
• Go.vic URL shortener
• Vic Gov IT project dashboard
• Victoria’s free public wi-fi network
• Cyber security in the Victorian Government

Sport and recreation

Traffic and transport

• Cameras Save Lives
• Transport Fines
• Getting Around
• Transport Planning
• Transport Future
• Climate Change and transport
• Future Directions For Transport
• Transport projects
• Ports and Freight

Working in the Victorian Government

• Single Digital Presence home
• Accommodation and Library Services
• Executive employment in the Victorian public sector
• Budget, procurement and funding
• Careers in the Victorian Government
• Council and Regulator Toolkit
• Guidelines for working in government
• Join a government network
• Standards and guidelines
• VicFleet CarPool
• Victorian Government style guide