Export
Issue No. 8 - December/ 2002/january
Climbing the Export Mountain
Exporting is important to Australia. It comprises just over a fifth of Australia’s GDP and one in five jobs is associated with exporting. Exporting firms are important engines of growth in the economy. Exporters compete with the world’s best companies, they innovate, and create and they bring their technology, skills and know—how back to Australia to the benefit of all of us. Exporters are at the cutting edge of the ‘new economy’ and were the first users of the Internet and other technological advances. Exporters also play an important role in the labour market. They provide high quality jobs, high wages, favourable working conditions and are highly committed to high standards of occupational health and safety and education and training for their workers. As a result, the workplaces of exporters achieve above—average levels of productivity compared to the rest of the economy.
However, despite the direct and indirect benefits that exporters bring to the economy, there aren’t very many of them in Australia. So much is being done by so few. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, there are only 25,000 exporters in Australia, which comprise 4 % of the total Australian business community. Furthermore, this 4 % exporter ratio is very low by international standards. Australia has fewer exporters proportionately than many other industrialised countries. Many European Union countries are at levels greater than 50 %, Scandinavian countries vary between Norway (37%) and Finland (58 %), a former eastern bloc country like is Poland is 52 % whilst at the bottom comes Canada (15 %) Australia (4 %) and the USA (3 %).
Why are we so low? There are five major reasons.
First of all, it’s a matter of geography. Many European nations have large export market virtually on their doorstop. Australia, in contrast, has had to cope with the ‘tyranny of distance’ in terms of export markets. Trade is often directly proportional to a country’s...
