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The beautiful but economically stagnant south of Italy has started to show early signs of a long-overdue renaissance. Since opening their doors a year ago, the country’s eight special economic zones (SEZs) — stretching from ​​Abruzzo in the centre, to Calabria in the south, and across to Sicily and Sardinia — have each built project pipelines of up to €1bn and instigated ambitious plans to modernise local infrastructure. On the face of it, this is attributed to their tax and regulatory benefits, plus a generous helping of EU recovery funds. But their early success is in large part down to the local SEZ commissioners and their teams, which have been passionately promoting their regions, building relationships and stoking some friendly competition among themselves.

Having been caught flat-footed on the reintroduction of industry-wide wage bargaining at the Albanese government’s Jobs and Skills Summit, big business finally is showing it will not repeat the mistake as the government considers further measures to make workplaces less flexible, less productive and ultimately union-controlled. The public entry of mining company BHP is a significant turn of events that demonstrates the stakes at play. Like Master Builders Australia and the Minerals Council of Australia, BHP is belling the cat that changes being proposed as a way to protect vulnerable workers in the gig economy have potential impacts that will be much more widespread.

26 October 2023.

But Mr Veldsman said that, under the Bill, there was no guarantee those different categories of driver would continue to be paid about the same. “We’re talking about draft legislation where the ‘full rate of pay’ is so unclear, so undefined, so broad and so open to speculation that we can’t say in future if this Bill is to actually pass that we can still do that,” he said. Mr Veldsman added a number of Hancock’s projects had already stalled due to red tape. Another major concern is a proposal to give casual workers the right to ask to convert to permanent employment after six months of regular hours.

5 October 2023.

China’s State Council has issued a circular to promote the replication of the latest reform experience tested in its pilot free trade zones (FTZs) across the country.

A total of 22 reform measures will be adopted nationwide, covering investment and trade facilitation, governance innovation, financial opening-up innovation, high-quality development of industries, and intellectual property protection, according to the circular.

You’ve got to spend money to make money.
It’s a concept most business leaders, including Mike Henry, know all too well, and it’s not by accident that BHP is Australia’s largest miner.