Aboriginal settlers arrived on the continent from Southeast Asia about 40,000 years before the first Europeans began exploration in the 17th century. No formal territorial claims were made until 1770, when Capt. James COOK took possession in the name of Great Britain. Six colonies were created in the late 18th and 19th centuries; they federated and became the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901. The new country took advantage of its natural resources to rapidly develop agricultural and manufacturing industries and to make a major contribution to the British effort in World Wars I and II. In recent decades, Australia has transformed itself into an internationally competitive, advanced market economy. It boasted one of the OECD's fastest growing economies during the 1990s, a performance due in large part to economic reforms adopted in the 1980s. Long-term concerns include ageing of the population, pressure on infrastructure, and environmental issues such as frequent droughts.

 

Australia's abundant and diverse natural resources attract high levels of foreign investment and include extensive reserves of coal, iron ore, copper, gold, natural gas, uranium, and renewable energy sources. A series of major investments, such as the US$40 billion Gorgon Liquid Natural Gas project, will significantly expand the resources sector. Australia also has a large services sector and is a significant exporter of natural resources, energy, and food. Key tenets of Australia's trade policy include support for open trade and the successful culmination of the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations, particularly for agriculture and services. The Australian economy grew for 17 consecutive years before the global financial crisis. Subsequently, the government introduced a fiscal stimulus package worth over US$50 billion to offset the effect of the slowing world economy, while the Reserve Bank of Australia cut interest rates to historic lows. These policies - and continued demand for commodities, especially from China - helped the Australian economy rebound after just one quarter of negative growth. The economy grew by 1.2% during the first three quarters of 2009 - the best performance in the OECD – and 3.3% in 2010. Unemployment, originally expected to reach 8-10%, peaked at 5.7% in late 2009 and fell to 5.1% by February 2010. As a result of an improved economy, the budget deficit is expected to peak below 4.2% of GDP and the government could return to budget surpluses as early as 2015. The Australian financial system remained resilient throughout the financial crisis and Australian banks have rebounded. Australia was one of the first advanced economies to raise interest rates – with seven rate hikes between October 2009 and November 2010. The GILLARD government is focused on raising Australia's economic productivity to ensure the sustainability of growth, and continues to manage the symbiotic, but sometimes tense, economic relationship with China. Australia is engaged in the Trans-Pacific Partnership talks and ongoing free trade agreement negotiations with China, Japan, and Korea.

Indicator	Measure	Rank
Geography
Area	7,741,220 sq km	6
	land: 7,682,300 sq km
	water: 58,920 sq km
Coastline	25,760 km
Natural resources	bauxite, coal, iron ore, copper, tin, gold, silver, uranium, nickel, tungsten, mineral sands, lead, zinc, diamonds, natural gas, petroleum note: Australia is the world's largest net exporter of coal accounting for 29% of global coal exports
Land use	arable land: 6.15%
	permanent crops: 0.04%
	other: 93.81% (2005)
Irrigated land	25,450 sq km (2003)

 

Indicator	Measure	Rank
Demographics and population development
Population size	21,515,754 (July 2010 est.)	54
Population structure	0-14 years: 18.4%
	15-64 years: 67.8%
	65 years and over: 13.7% (2010 est.)
Popn growth rate	1.171% (2010 est.)	108
Net migration rate	6.13 immigrant(s)/1,000 population (2010 est.)	11
Urbanization	89% of total population (2008)
	growth: 1.2% (2005-10 est.)
Sex ratio	1 male(s)/female (2010 est.)
Life expectancy at birth	81.72 years (2010 est.)	8
Total fertility rate	1.78 children born/woman (2010 est.)	156
HIV prevalence rate	0.2% (2007 est.)	92
Literacy rate	99% (2003 est.)
School life expectancy	20 years (2006)

 

economic overview

Communications

Indicator	Measure	Rank
Infrastructure
Airports	464 (2009)	17
	with paved runways: 325
	with unpaved runways: 139
Pipelines	gas 27,105 km; liquid petroleum gas 240 km; oil 3,258 km; oil/gas/water 1 km (2009)
Railways	37,855 km	7
Roadways	812,972 km	9
Ports and terminals	Brisbane, Dampier, Fremantle, Gladstone, Hay Point, Melbourne, Newcastle, Port Hedland, Port Kembla, Port Walcott, Sydney

A total of 295 Realistic Export Opportunities (REOs) from South Africa to Australia are identified based on the North-West University’s (South Africa) TRADE Decision Support Model (DSM).

The methodology is a very useful instrument to identify market opportunities globally for one’s product and also provides a good reference for one to be able to prioritise marketing efforts based on the value and size of these opportunities.

The TRADE-DSM Navigator provides sound information that companies are able to use in developing their export marketing strategy and forms the basis and guidance for further research should this be required.

In total 295 of the products associated with import demand are identified as realistic export opportunities. The relative 'untapped' potential of the market opportunity is shown in the chart below:

A total 'untapped' potential from South Africa's perspective of approximately 2.94 (in million US dollar terms) based on the average value of the top 6 supplying countries (excluding South Africa) are associated with these specific product export opportunities.

The highest number of identified opportunities are associated with the economic sector of

Food (301-304) .

Not all sectors will be present, as not all economic sectors (some of which are based on economic activity while the REOs are based on traded products) are relevant for all products. However, various other sectors also do exhibit potential.

While the above examples are based on high level economic sectors, the information is available at a much more granular level on the HS 6-digit tariff code level. To demonstrate the following example of a product description is provided:

HS CHAPTER 84:
NUCLEAR REACTORS, BOILERS, MACHINERY AND MECHANICAL APPLIANCES; PARTS THEREOF
Sub-heading 84.27:
Fork-lift trucks; other works trucks fitted with lifting or handling equipment:
HS 6-digit product code 8427.10:
Self-propelled trucks powered by an electric motor.

Research reports containing more detailed information related to these realistic export opportunities (down to product level as illustrated with the above product description) for each country are available from TIKZN.

Please contact us if you are interested in more detail by clicking here.

For an example of a more detailed country report please click here.

Please note that a more up-to-date version for the specific country report used in this example is available from TIKZN. This report is provided for demonstration purposes only and should not be used for any decision-making.

For more in-depth research you can also contact our NWU knowledge partners at
TRADE Research Advisory.

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