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Minister for Innovation
Minister for State and Regional Development
The Hon John Brumby MP
Wednesday 3 July 2002


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Your Excellency Ashok Mirpuri, Singapore's High Commissioner to Australia
Lord Mayor, John So
Carrillo Gantner, Chairman, Asialink Centre
Others TBC

Thank you for your kind invitation to speak at this prestigious event.

I was particularly delighted to accept because the Singapore - Australia Young Business Ambassadors Program neatly ties together two of our Government's priorities for economic development:

• strengthening our links with Asia; and
• building networks in and between the public and private sectors, academia, industries and countries.

AUSTRALIA - SINGAPORE RELATIONSHIP
In recent years, Australia has come to see itself as part of the Asia-Pacific region and Victoria has embraced new opportunities in the region.

In time, Victoria's connections with the region will inevitably deepen and multiply - not just economically, but socially and culturally as well.

That's a development the Victorian Government welcomes. It's a development that we are working actively to promote.

Strengthening links with Singapore is absolutely central to our engagement with Asia.

Singapore is the most successful and forward looking economy of South East Asia, one of the world's major trading centres and a driving force for free trade in the region.

Singapore and Australia already enjoy a strong and productive bilateral relationship based on long-standing educational, trade, tourism and Commonwealth links and a shared strategic outlook.

Our future relationship is one of close cooperation, especially in economic and business affairs.

Australia and Singapore are engaged in a range of major regional and global economic, political and security issues including;

• APEC;
• the ASEAN Regional Forum;
• the ASEAN Free Trade Area-Closer Economic Relations initiative; and
• the Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation.

We also have effective links with Singapore in the areas of narcotics control, the environment and disarmament/arms control.

Trade and investment
The core of our relationship though is built on mutually productive trade and investment.

Singapore is Australia's 7th largest trading partner with two-way trade in goods and services exceeding A$13 billion in 2000-2001.

The investment picture is also healthy with total Australian investment in Singapore growing dramatically, reaching A$9.7 billion as at June 2000 - double the level from the previous financial year.

And total level of Singaporean investment in Australia was recorded at A$19.8 billion as of June 2000.

Some of the more significant Singapore investments in Victoria include:

• ES Cell International - partly owned by the Singaporean Economic Development Board - Australia's leading stem cell research facility and a key partner in the new $46.5 million national Biotechnology Centre of Excellence;
  
• Singapore Network Services, which is forming a partnership with Victoria's foodbowl region to develop IT applications to process quarantine and customs information;
  
• ACA Pacific Technology, a market leader in creating integrated IT solutions for the Asia-Pacific region;
  
• ESRI Australia, the largest supplier of Geographic Information Systems software and services in Australia;
  
• Keppel Prince Engineering, a major fabricator and construction contractor , backed by the Keppel Fels Energy & Infrastructure Group based in Singapore; and
  
• the Overseas-Chinese Banking Corporation, one of Singapore's leading financial institutions.

These investments are a strong indication of Victoria's strengths in biotechnology, ICT and financial services - all very strategic industries and ones where we believe there are many more exciting investment opportunities for Singapore.

Economically, Victoria is really leading the nation:

• Victorian state final demand (SFD) rose by 0.5 % in the March quarter to be 5.2 % higher than a year ago, outstripping the national figure of 4.5 %.
• Unemployment is currently at its lowest level in 12 years.
• Private business investment in Victoria, is growing more rapidly than for Australia as a whole.
• Access Economics lists investment projects in Victoria already under construction or committed worth $11.4 billion.
• In 2000-01, Victoria's exports of goods reached a record high of $22.5 billion, an increase of $3.4 billion or 18 % on the previous year.

This sound economic base provides many opportunities for growth in trade between Victoria and Singapore.

In 2000-01, trade between Singapore and Victoria totalled $2.2 billion. with the balance of trade in favour of Victoria's exports to Singapore - worth $1.5 billion.

Singapore ranks as Victoria's 8th largest trading partner and 4th largest export destination.

Victorian exports to Singapore are varied including petroleum, milk products, meat and photographic and cinematographic supplies.

Singapore ranks as Victoria's 13th largest source of imports which include petroleum oils, automatic data processing machines and units, telecommunications equipment and thermionic, cold cathode or photo cathode valves and tubes.

Trade in services such as education and tourism is also becoming increasingly important.

Singapore is our largest source of overseas students for on and off shore Victorian educational institutions and around 2500 Singapore students are currently studying here.

Singapore is also Australia's fifth largest source of short-term visitors with 276,000 in 2000 of which 65,000 visited Victoria.

The Victoria Government is keen to explore ways of strengthening and expanding these key sectors. Both the Premier and our Tourism Minister visited Singapore last year and met with tourism related companies and I am planning to visit the Lion City within the next 12 months.

Like the Premier, I hope to have the opportunity to tour the Singapore Synchrotron as we are now developing Australia's first Synchrotron here in Victoria.

Other emerging trade opportunities include supplying technology, expertise and services for Singapore's growing chemical and petrochemical industries.

Victorian Government's commitment to free ttrade
In Victoria, we recognise that world trade is the fastest growing industry in the world and - because Australia represents only 1% of world markets - we need, like Singapore to 'go global'.

And, again like Singapore, we are committed to free trade. This stems from the fact that, since Western settlement, we have been a trading economy dependent on exporting resources and agricultural products and importing manufactured products.

When Britain joined the European Community, we received a major wake up call about our reliance on traditional markets.

This intensified our drive to develop new trading partners, particularly in Asia which was also coming of age as a sophisticated importer of resources and exporter of processed and manufactured products.

Now our relationships with existing markets, and how we engage with new markets, is evolving as we shift from exporting commodities to exporting value-added goods and services.

Australia Singapore Free Trade Agreement
The Victorian Government welcomes the bilateral Free Trade Agreement (FTA) now being developed between Singapore and Australia.

Negotiations have covered a wide range of areas including:

• tariff-free access for goods;
• improved market access for services; and
• trade facilitation in key areas such as e-commerce, standards, education, intellectual property protection and customs procedures.

We support the FTA's commitment to:

• eliminate tariffs on all goods traded between the two countries which meet the Rules of Origin criteria, and
• not apply non-tariff measures against goods traded with each other, unless those measures are in accordance with our WTO obligations.

We are particularly interested in securing recognition of Australian educational qualifications - especially given our role as a major offshore education provider.

We are also focussed on the issue of enforcement of intellectual property legislation which is increasingly important as Victoria moves to being a knowledge-driven economy with new ideas as a key export.

Increased access to Singapore's major services sectors and government procurement is another strong area of interest for Victoria.

And given our Government's commitment to boosting e-commerce through the Connecting Victoria and eCommerce Advantage strategies, we strongly support the Agreement's promotion of e-commerce as an impetus towards paperless trade.

Victoria has been at the forefront of this in Australia through initiatives such as the Electronic Commerce for Procurement (EC4P) program to manage Government procurement online, the Vic Export website and the development of electronic Export Receival Advice or ERAs.

We would certainly be interested in expanding such online services across the Asia-Pacific region - perhaps with the ICT-focussed economies of Singapore and Victoria acting as key electronic trading gateways.

Singapore-Australia YBA Program
But while the FTA will open up new business opportunities for Singapore and Australia, ultimately it is not agreements but the human factors that will really count in the long run.

Successful business partnerships are dependent on people sharing knowledge, developing relationships based on mutual trust and understanding and staying connected with each other.

As I mentioned earlier, our Government sees such networks as essential to building a competitive, innovative and connected economy

So we have been encouraging the growth of industry clusters and business networks in key sectors such as biotechnology and ICT.

We are promoting Victoria as an international destination for business, industry and research events and conferences to encourage more connections with the global community.

This is why my Department is co-funding and helping to organise the 2002 Australian Universities International Alumni Convention in Melbourne this September.

The Singapore-Australia YBA Program plays a very valuable role in this respect.

It gives our future business leaders the opportunity to understand more about each other's countries and start building the links - and friendships - that will underpin our long-term business relationships.

I am pleased to note that this year's participants come from a wide range of backgrounds including banking and corporate finance law, community preventive programs, human resources, import and export services, accounting, marketing and the public sector.

I am even more pleased to note that one of them is a member of my own Department, Kirsten Green from the Office of Manufacturing.

My congratulations to all this year's Young Business Ambassadors and I am sure we will be hearing a lot more from all of you in the coming years.

I also congratulate the Asialink Centre and the Singapore International Foundation for their great work in organising this program.

Thank you.