Australia added its support for Chinese President Xi Jinping's historic speech attacking antiglobalization rhetoric, saying the country was committed to open and free trade relationships.
Mathias Cormann, Australia's finance minister, endorsed President Xi's speech on Tuesday in which Xi said that no country would stand to benefit in the event of a global trade war.
"Obviously nobody in the world would want to see a trade war, and I think all of our focus has to be on doing business in the best possible way," Mathias Cormann, Australia's finance minister, told CNBC in Davos, Switzerland.
"Australia is an open trading economy and we very well understand that the best way for all of us to get ahead and to get the best possible living standards for people in our respective countries is to engage in open and free trade," he added.
The Belgian-born politician stressed that Australia's government would strive to maintain its triple-A credit rating in spite of concerns from the rating agencies regarding the country's budget shortfalls.
Cormann told CNBC in December that Australia's government was on track to return the economy to a budget surplus by the 2020-2021 fiscal year.
