Stunning for holidays and enticing for investors, Queensland offers biodiversity, a skilled workforce and low taxes. With this plus all the benefits of a modern service-based economy operating under sunny skies, Queensland has emerged as a growth leader for Australia. Area: 1,730,650 sq km Population: 3,697,900 (18.7%) Capital: Brisbane (pop. 1.7m) State Final Demand: A$128.08bn* SFD growth: 8.9% Gross State Product: A$119.6bn‡ Credit rating (S&P): AAA Employment growth: 3.1% Average weekly earnings: A$639.20 Unemployment rate: 7.2% (03/03) Inflation: 3%* *=2002, ‡=2001/2. Source: ABS.

Queensland

The Smart State

Queensland’s tag of ‘the smart state’ may be an act of self-promotion, but in a state that is larger than the UK, France, Germany and Italy combined, the advantages of world-class IT and communications connections are obvious.

Hence Queensland’s drive to create a superior operating environment for IT companies. Organisations that have established design, research and manufacturing functions in the state include Boeing Australia, Hewlett Packard, Oracle, Compaq and Redhat. American software company Indus International and information technology firm Saville Systems have also established regional headquarters, while Qantas, ITT Sheraton, DHL Worldwide Express, IBM, Citibank and Telstra-Excell have established Asia-Pac call centres in Queensland.

Room to grow
The economy in Queensland reflects a broad-based services sector, a high export-orientation of industries, and high quality infrastructure in communications, transport, banking and finance. International and domestic logistics are assured by the excellent network of roads and railways, 16 ports, numerous domestic airports and three international airports.

At the mouth of the Brisbane river, the ‘Australia TradeCoast’ investment and trade initiative provides attractive availability of land and services in close proximity to the city’s rapidly-developing port and airport precinct and surrounding industrial lands. The close cooperation of port, city and state authorities have made TradeCoast a successful international investment proposition.

As the fastest-growing state of Australia both demographically and economically, Queensland’s population of nearly 3.7m is expected to reach almost 5m by 2021, while its economic growth has outpaced the rest of the country for more than a decade. The state government has forecast economic growth for 2002/3 at 4.25%, compared with a forecast of 3.75% for Australia as a whole.

Golden opportunity
With the lowest state taxes per capita in Australia, coupled with the lowest payroll tax rate and highest tax-free threshold, Queensland is a highly attractive investment destination. Business costs are low, supported by abundant land and energy.

The state capital, Brisbane, is a key business, government and financial centre, while the diverse regions of Queensland are home to a wealth of opportunities for development.

Gold Coast City, for example, is Australia’s sixth largest city and fastest-growing area, home to a thriving manufacturing sector, a growing ICT cluster, and service industries related to tourism, construction, finance, retail, film and media. The education sector is stimulated by the high population growth, and attracts increasingly significant numbers of international students.

Further north, the Rockhampton region of Central Queensland boasts vast water and power reserves in an area at the heart of the state’s mineral processing and light metals development, backed by a strong infrastructure base.

In April 2003 the Minister for State Development, Tom Barton, launched a landmark development plan to position Queensland’s A$10bn manufacturing industry as a global leader in investment, innovation, growth and technological change. The ‘Making Queensland’s Future’ strategy takes on issues facing the industry and builds on Queensland’s strengths and international reputation in the global manufacturing market.

Biodiversity
Queensland’s vast area is home to tropical rainforest, the Great Barrier Reef (the only living organism visible from outer space), and a huge variety of terrain. As a result the state accounts for more than half of Australia’s bio-diversity and is particularly well placed to benefit from the new industries based on biotechnology, and from the application of biotechnology discoveries to traditional businesses.

Queensland’s unique biodiversity offers many opportunities for the development of knowledge-intensive industries stemming from bio-discoveries of new chemicals and drugs. There are, for example, more tree species in one hectare of far north Queensland rainforest than in all of North America.

Multinational biotech and pharmaceutical corporations such as AstraZeneca have established research and development operations in Queensland. The Queensland Investment Corporation will manage the recently-announced Queensland Bio-Capital Fund, which will invest A$100m venture capital in biotechnology projects which have potential for high commercial returns.

Resourceful: Queensland boasts major deposits and processing industries

Mineral resources
The state also has highly significant mineral resources of coal, silver, copper, lead, zinc, gold, bauxite, titanium feedstocks and magnesite. Those resources form the basis of significant processing industries and vital exports – alumina and aluminium, copper, zinc, gold, silver, nickel and cobalt.

Construction has started in Central Queensland on the world’s largest magnesium metal plant, with the Ford Motor Company already contracted to buy about half its projected annual output of 97,000 tonnes of metal and alloys in the first 10 years. Production is due to begin in 2004.

Tourism
Tourism is Queensland’s second largest industry and largest employer, generating almost A$8bn in revenue annually. A stunning variety of tourism experiences are complemented by modern convention centres for business-related tourism.

Forestry
Opportunities in forestry include hardwood and softwood plantations to supply fibre and solid wood pro-ducts to established and growing market demands. Established industry is looking towards plantations to complement natural hardwood forest timbers, while there is extensive interest in growing hardwood fibre for export.

Agriculture
Queensland supports a major sugar industry, one of the world’s largest cattle herds, forestry, cotton and grain growing, and an increasingly diverse horticultural industry. Most of these are geared to export, as is the state’s fishing industry, with important wild fisheries increasingly complemented by aquaculture.

For overseas investors there exist significant opportunities in agriculture and food processing, especially as a sound base for expansion into the Asia-Pacific region.

For more information contact:
Queensland State Development
Telephone: +61 7 3224 4035
Email: tradeinfo@sd.qld.gov.au
Website: www.sd.qld.gov.au