Carpenter looks past figures

Western Australia’s share of the nation’s exports may have reached 30.4 per cent, but State Development Minister Alan Carpenter is adamant the state can achieve more.

Mr Carpenter referred to the figures (Australian Bureau of Statistics year to May 2005) last week in an address to the International Business Council of WA titled ‘International trade: opportunities and challenges for Western Australia in the next four years’.

Mr Carpenter said the total value of exports was not the only measure of success and that additional indicators and objectives had to be examined, such as the number of WA companies exporting.

“One in five jobs is directly dependent on exports but surprisingly, perhaps, only 4 per cent of companies export,” Mr Carpenter said.

“Those figures say two things: exporting, in fact two-way trade and investment are vital to the development of the WA economy. It is a great source of growth and jobs and if we can get more companies into exporting – say double the proportion of companies that export from 4 per cent to 8 per cent – we would make a real difference to the state’s economy.”

Mr Carpenter told the business council a greater diversity in the composition of WA’s trade and export destinations was desirable.

“Over the past 10 years, 80 per cent of WA’s total exports have been sourced from just 10 product categories,” he said.

“We’re overly reliant on commodities and need to build our manufacturing and traded services sector.

“I would like to see higher value adding or knowledge content; in other words higher levels of processing in commodities prior to export, more exports of ‘elaborately transformed manufactures’ and increased exports of intelligent services,” he said.

To achieve his goals, Mr Carpenter said he first wanted to get the “big picture” right, which involved creating a competitive business environment in which export champions naturally emerge.

“We need to do that by working on a number of fronts,” Mr Carpenter said. “There are a number of specific trade and investment initiatives that we need to consider, but those in many respects only serve to reinforce all the other components of state development policies.”

Mr Carpenter said there were several major areas of economic policy that he believed would help shape a successful outcome for WA in international trade and investment.

“Getting maximum leverage from expenditure by providing common-user infrastructure that can kick start multiple projects and expand exiting projects,” he said.

“We need infrastructure assests like the Australian Marine Complex at Henderson and the Burrup Peninsula to create industry clusters – groups of companies that compete and co-operate and act as mini Silicon Valleys in a dynamic setting for industry development.”

A second area of focus for increasing WA’s international competitiveness, and consequently exporting capabilities, was reducing real energy costs.

Mr Carpenter also highlighted innovation and the development of new products and processes as ways to create new or more productive industries.

“We need to develop research institutions each with sufficient critical mass to make a difference to back our winning industries,” he said.