French Delegation Visit

The visit follows the recent signing of a Memorandum of Friendship with the French Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FACCI) facilitated by its Founder, expatriate French business consultant Christine Caseris, with whom the City is working closely to realise its Rockingham Renaissance goals.

The delegates toured Rockingham to see for themselves the opportunities on offer and were introduced to the City’s capabilities and potential for long term future investment.

“We’ve been in discussion with French industries for some time” said Mayor Barry Sammels. “Our Investment Attraction Manager has been to France to introduce the City to investors and a range of high-technology industries, so this visit was the next step in our relationship and marks the commencement of the next stage of this very exciting project.”

Ideally positioned between Garden Island, the Kwinana industrial area and Henderson, Rockingham could become the centre of Western Australia’s high technology industrial development.

The City’s vision is to support the creation of specialised innovation clusters focusing on research and development in high technology fields such as robotics, renewable energy, water treatment and cyber security, among others. 

One of the delegates, Mr Ben Maslen from LASSARAT, a leading industrial coatings company in France, said “French companies have a strategic interest in research, technology transfer and innovation, which will keep them at the forefront of world leading research over the long term.”

This will create the opportunity to apply best practice used by French industry, but customised to suit the Western Australian context.

The Rockingham Renaissance project is facilitating multiple avenues for partnership. The first significant milestone is expected to be reached very soon with the commencement of the Renaissance Technopole, a dedicated research and development facility based on a French model of collaboration between universities and training providers, industry and investors, which integrates research and development activities to create the best conditions for bringing innovative projects to fruition. Several French companies are ready to start work as soon as the doors are open.

“Rockingham Renaissance has attracted a lot of interest not only from the French side but also from South East Asia, Asia and other parts of the world”, said Mayor Sammels.

“The French economy is huge and has the capacity to create strong links wherever productive partnership opportunities can be developed. This project will certainly complement what has already been achieved by Western Australia and will help create a strong partnership with other French connections throughout Australia.”