Competitive & Dynamic Business Environment
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Victoria is a strong, flexible economy that is going places. It’s never been a better time to invest here.
Victoria accounts for only 3% of Australia’s land mass, yet is responsible for 24% of Australia’s economic activity. Its economy is bigger than that of Singapore, Hong Kong and New Zealand.
During the global financial crisis, Australia was the only advanced economy to record positive growth. What’s more, Victoria has led the national recovery, creating 115,800 new jobs in 2009-10, over 25,000 more than any other state.
Victoria is the manufacturing, services, innovation and knowledge powerhouse of Australia.
With 5.5 million inhabitants, it’s the nation’s most densely populated state. The capital, Melbourne, is a cosmopolitan, globalised city of 4 million people.
An English-speaking gateway to the Asia-Pacific and affluent markets in other Australian states, Melbourne is renowned for its skilled and innovative workforce and enviable lifestyle.
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Open economy
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Victoria is one of the strongest and most resilient economies in the world. The state enjoys AAA credit ratings from both Standard and Poor’s and Moody’s and has done consistently for ten years.
Economic growth averaged 3.8% in the decade to 2007-08, significantly higher than the global and OECD average.
It’s an economy built on a tradition of exporting. In 2008-09, Victorian exports totalled over $33 billion, including $20.4 billion in goods and $12.7 billion in services.
Victoria has a diverse range of manufacturing and service industries, supported by an excellent education and R&D base.
From agricultural produce to manufacturing, resources, and the rapidly growing services sector, Melbourne’s strategic location within Asia opens up exciting opportunities for companies with a presence here.
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Convenient access to Asia
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Each day, Australia is the first financial market to open in the world. This time zone advantage enables us to bridge US and European business hours, ideal for round-the-clock operations.
Melbourne Airport is Australia’s largest, curfew-free and open 24 hours. More than 200 international flights arrive each week, with an average of 30 direct flights a day.
The Port of Melbourne is the southern hemisphere’s largest container port.
A linguistically and culturally diverse population means Asian languages are among those most commonly spoken in Victorian homes.
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Safe, proven investment location
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Australia is the world’s safest foreign investment location.
In 2010, Dun & Bradstreet’s Global Risk Indicator, which assesses economic, commercial, external and political risk to provide risk ratings for 131 countries around the world, ranked Australia equal first alongside Canada, Norway and Switzerland.
Twenty-eight of Australia’s 100 top-performing companies are foreign owned. The 500 biggest foreign companies operating in Australia account for:
55% of total manufacturing revenue
20% of wholesale trade revenue
25% of communications revenue
11% of finance and insurance revenue
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Ease and transparency
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Victoria is one of the most supportive and efficient places in the world in which to start a new business, requiring just two days for regulatory procedures.
Melbourne beats other destinations in the region hands down for quality and ease of doing business, and low operating costs.
The World Bank’s Doing Business 2010 report ranked Australia among the top 10 countries in the world for ease of doing business.
Transparent and flexible investment rules foster a climate of enterprise.
Businesses can plan with confidence in the knowledge that Australia has one of the most respected and stable legal and regulatory environments in the world, ranked in the top ten by the World Competitiveness Yearbook 2010.
A strong competition regime means businesses compete on a level playing field.
Australia’s currency is fully internationalised, and there are no restrictions on access to credit or loan facilities, or capital flows.
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Low costs
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In 2010, Melbourne was rated number one by consultants KPMG for cost competitiveness in the Asia-Pacific region.
Investors reap the benefits of a pro-business government, world-class research and educational infrastructure and a multilingual, highly educated workforce – without the steep costs associated with destinations such as the US and UK.
For example, clinical trials management costs nearly 35% less in Melbourne than in the United States, while electronic systems development and testing industries are 20% less.
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Innovative state
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Melbourne gave the world the cochlear implant, the first frozen embryo birth, the black box flight recorder, and the first cervical cancer vaccine.
That tradition of fostering talent and new ideas continues. In 2000, Victoria became the first Australian state to have a dedicated innovation minister.
A $1.8 billion innovation framework has seen investment in world-leading facilities such as the Australian Synchrotron, the Victorian Life Sciences Computation Initiative.
This historic, longstanding commitment helped Australia continue to capture the benefits of innovation right through the global financial crisis.
The 2009-2010 INSEAD Global Innovation Index saw Australia jump eight spots on innovation performance to rank number 20 out of 132 countries.
Singled out for praise were the availability of venture capital, regulatory quality, government effectiveness, culture to innovate, and quality of scientific research Institutions.
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