Forewords
  
   
   
   

Forewords

Rugby Business Club Australia

Australia

States and Territories

Sector Strengths

Welcoming the World

RBCA Partners

Products and Services

Credits

 
 

The International Rugby Board and Australian Rugby Union are proudly staging Rugby World Cup 2003 in Australia
 
 

The economy

Capital: Rome
Area: 301,200 sq km
Population: 58.1m
GDP: A$2176bn
Real GDP growth: 0.4%
Trade with Australia: A$6.24bn

Italy’s economic strength is in processing and manufacturing, primarily by small and medium-sized enterprises. Major industries include tourism, precision machinery, textiles, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, food processing and motor vehicles.
Italy

With more than 800,000 Australians claiming Italian descent, the bonds between these two distant countries are strong through decades of immigration and the trade that followed – Italy is Australia’s second largest market in the EU, and its 12th largest worldwide.

Italy is the world’s fifth largest industrial economy, despite few natural resources – it imports most raw materials and energy. Its manufacturing sector dominates exports, while services and high-tech exports have lagged behind many other developed countries, with the exception of great strengths in tourism and design. Nevertheless its versatile SME culture has proven adept in the application of new technology to traditional sectors such as clothing, household goods and specialised industrial machinery.

Rugby Odds – 600/1
Led by former All Black John Kirwan, Italy is throwing off its traditional one-dimensional, forward-orientated style to embrace 15-man game plans. A tough Pool D draw with five games in 14 days has drawn furious protests from the Italian Rugby Federation.

Key players

  • Alessandro Troncon, Captain (Scrumhalf, Treviso)
  • Mauro Bergamasco (Flanker, Treviso)
  • Diego Dominguez (Flyhalf, Stade Francais, France)
  • Sergio Parisse (Number 8, Treviso)

The odds – 600/1
(Centrebet June ‘03)

Tourism. In 2001, 7% of GDP came from tourism, equivalent to €77.5bn (A$135bn) – more than 2m people are employed in Italy’s tourism sector.

Pharmaceuticals. Italy is the world’s fifth largest pharmaceutical market, and growing. In 2000 domestic trade reached €9.1bn (9.5% growth), with imports of €4.2bn and exports of €5.3bn.

Motor vehicles. The automotive industry employs more than 1.5m people and invests €1bn annually in R&D, 15% of all business R&D.

Structural reform
Italy’s current government is committed to structural reform, with fiscal consolidation aimed at reducing the budget-to-GDP ratio, partly to meet EU Growth and Stability Pact commitments. The agenda for 2002/3 also includes labour market and pension reform (Italy’s ageing population was the first in the world to record more people over 65 than under 15), although strong opposition from trade unions is hampering progress on the pensions issue.

A message from
HE Murray A. Cobban, Australian Ambassador to Italy

Some people say that one should not mix business and sport, because it’s difficult to concentrate on one when you are thinking of the other.

This could be good advice for those who can only think of one thing at a time, but the successful sportsman/woman, like the successful businessman/woman, is successful because of an ability to do more than one thing at a time.

I can think of no better way to test this philosophy than by combining a business trip to Australia to coincide with Rugby World Cup 2003.

In Italy, soccer (or calcio as it is known here) is by far the most popular sport, but Italy also has a strong Rugby community. In fact, the Italian Rugby team is currently coached by John Kirwan, who has given many an Australian Rugby supporter a number of anxious moments over his distinguished career for the All Blacks.

Last November in Genoa, the Wallabies had a 35-0 win over the Italian Rugby team and more than 20,000 fanatical Italian (and Australian) Rugby followers were treated to an excellent game.

Italy and Australia are major business partners and share close links due to the large Italo/Australian community Down Under. We Aussies have also provided some fine Rugby players to the Italian competition – the great David Campese comes to mind, as does Mark Caputo!

So I can think of no better way for Italian business people to spend their European summer than by taking advantage of world-class Rugby played in world-class cities through Austrade’s Rugby Business Club.

See you there, or as we say in Italy – arrivederci!
www.australian-embassy.it

Austrade Milan
Telephone: +39 02 777 041
Fax: +39 02 7770 4242
Email: info@austrade.gov.au
Website: www.austrade.gov.au

  

 
             
       
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