Infrastructure manager Hastings and China Merchants Investment Development Company Limited (CMID) have signed in Camberra a partnership agreement to invest together globally in infrastructure projects.

This announcement comes after the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement achieved on 17 November 2014.

Under the agreement Hastings Funds Management and China Merchants will confer each other with "strategic partner" status to invest together globally in infrastructure including Australian privatization opportunities.

CMID will become Hastings' first-choice Chinese partner for global infrastructure investment and CMID will regard Hastings as it first-choice Australian partner for similar opportunities

Commenting on the deal Hastings chief Executive Andrew Day stated:

"We believe we are the first infrastructure investor to successfully conduct a major Australian infrastructure transaction with a Chinese investor and the first to secure a strategic partnership agreement between a Chinese State-owned enterprise and an Australian infrastructure fund manager."

On 30 April a 50:50 joint venture formed by Hastings Funds Management and China Merchants won the auction for the 98-year lease of the Port of Newcastle, an asset the New South Wales state government had valued at A$700 million. The New South Wales government and the Port of Newcastle Investments consortium signed a final contract on 30 May.