Page 1313 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 5 May 2015
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MR BARR: The Labor Party is committed to supporting jobs growth in the territory. We will leave the job cutting to the Liberal Party. You are expert in doing that. You have been doing it locally and nationally since you came into existence as a political party.
The ACT government’s focus is on growing our economy, diversifying our economy and supporting jobs growth. Through our business development strategy we have been achieving those goals, fostering the right business environment, supporting new business investment in the ACT economy and, most importantly, accelerating innovation in our economy.
To do this we have established Invest Canberra and the CBR Innovation Network. Invest Canberra was launched in 2013. It is a dedicated investment facilitation function within ACT government. It comprises a team of investment facilitation professionals that support a range of actions to encourage new investment in the territory economy—locally, nationally and internationally sourced new investment. This ranges from high-level marketing and positioning, right through to case-specific management and to key decision-making points where there is a role for the territory government to facilitate investment.
In relation to trade, we as a community are now exporting more than $1.2 billion in services each year. That is nearly 2½ per cent of Australia’s service exports. Canberra has about 1½ per cent of the national population and we are exporting nearly 2½ per cent of Australia’s service exports. So it is an area of considerable growth, and something that ought to be celebrated—the success of exporters, particularly service exporters from the territory.
Through our trade delegation work, we are enabling this rapidly growing sector to continue to grow. Over the last 18 months we have organised a range of delegations to key markets, including China, Singapore and the United States.
I would like to take a moment now to highlight some of the notable successes coming out of the ACT government’s trade development activities. These include Intelledox, who recently won two ACT export awards and announced a major partnership with global entity Fuji Xerox during a recent Singapore trade mission. Datapod has completed its first sale into the North American public sector market. Its growing list of clients includes the CSIRO, BHP Billiton, Saab Technologies, Papua New Guinea Maritime, and the Australian federal government. Seeing Machines, the current ACT Exporter of the Year, has recently opened an office in California and has contracts in Latin America. It is also partnering with Toshiba to develop new uses for its technology.
The CBR Innovation Network, which was formally launched in November last year, links the government and business community directly to five major research institutions in Canberra—the ANU, the CSIRO, NICTA, the University of Canberra and the University of New South Wales. Through this partnership we can continue to diversify the territory’s economy, to develop emerging enterprises, to support our export capabilities and to grow local employment opportunities.
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