Premier Jay Weatherill announces $18bn trade target as SA welcomes new free trade agreement with China FOREIGN investment will be targeted to create 6000 jobs over the next three years and help lift annual South Australian exports to $18 billion, the State Government has announced. Premier Jay Weatherill today released the policy, just hours before the signing of a new free-trade agreement between the Australian and Chinese governments. Mr Weatherill said it appeared the agreement would provide a huge boost for SA growth industries, like wine, and the state may avoid harm from other mooted trade-offs. The new state policy aimed to exploit SA industries with growth potential, he said. "This economic priority is about promoting South Australia's engagement with the world, leveraging off our extraordinary multicultural community," Mr Weatherill said. This particular objective is about inviting more South Australians, especially those businesses that have the ambition to grow, to lift their sights beyond our borders. The promoting SA's international connections and engagement policy aims to increase goods and services exports from $13.8 billion last year to $18 billion by 2017. It also targets a lift in business migrants from 130 to 250 per year by 2017 and a rise in annual skilled migrant numbers to SA from 2226 to 2400 over the same period. Investment and Trade Minister Martin Hamilton-Smith said this would require the state to build on strong growth rates recorded in the past three years. Mr Weatherill said it was an ambitious target given a decline in the automotive sector and unusually strong recent commodity exports. Mr Hamilton-Smith said achieving the targets "won't be easy." "But we'll do our very best to achieve it, and we will," he said. They will be achieved. Originally published as SA aims for 6000 new jobs with $18bn trade target