One way to ensure our overseas customers want to continue to Buy Australian is to support our thriving Research and Development (R&D) sector.
In our last e-newsletter, we discussed the “unique-ness” of Australia’s exports being one of the strongest attributes of Australian products in the eyes of the consumer (Source: Australian Made) and the R&D sector is a major source of “unique-ness”, as it turns new ideas into new products and services.
The strong links between Australian R&D institutions and our manufacturing sector are helping to commercialise ideas and ensure innovation translates into marketable products and services worldwide.
For example, co-operative research centres help to commercialise technologies in specialist fields such as advanced composite structures, automotive technologies, cast metals manufacturing, railway engineering and polymers.
As a result, manufacturing currently attracts more than $3.9 billion annually in R&D, or 39 per cent of all business expenditure on R&D (Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Cat. No. 8140.0, Business Expenditure of R&D, 2005–2006). Approximately $10 billion is invested annually in new plant and equipment.
Given that advanced manufacturing already accounts for around half of Australia’s $104 billion annual manufacturing output and is one of the fastest growing export sectors, this level of expenditure bodes well for the future. To be continued.
