Page 3473 - Week 11 - Thursday, 15 November 2007
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has maintained its strong support for the knowledge economy through a new five-year funding arrangement for the National ICT Australia Centre for Excellence. NICTA’s new $60 million laboratory on London Circuit, which will open in early December, will also play a major role in developing the City West knowledge precinct.
The government has also been active at the enterprise end of ICT, supporting initiatives such as the canberra.net cluster, a joint initiative with Microsoft Australia and the ACT chapter of the Australian Information Industries Association. Our commitment to ICT businesses is also evident in other government-supported initiatives, such as the ACT Exporters Network, the Industry Capability Network and our trade mission program.
Trade development is an important part of our overall business development focus. ACT exports continue to grow each year and are now within reach of breaking through the billion dollar annual export sales mark. We continue to provide funding support to the ACT Exporters Network, which is co-delivered by the Canberra Business Council. We funded to deliver two highly successful trade missions to India and China this year involving 20 local companies, and I have committed to follow up missions to these important markets in 2008.
Planning is also underway for a mission to North America towards the middle of next year, which will support some of our more established markets in ICT and government procurement. Normally, government trade missions are about making introductions and establishing the basis of future relationships, but I have been particularly pleased with the level of business generated directly by the missions this year.
Canberra companies Yellow Edge, Inland Trading and the Hindmarsh Group were able to generate immediate business on the heels of the China mission. The India mission accelerated HCL Technologies’ decision to set up an office in Canberra in April this year, and I am hopeful more will follow, especially in the wake of October’s focus on India, which was an important follow-up activity to the February mission.
The fifth strategic theme of the Canberra plan is partnerships for growth. Since the 2006-07 budget, there has been some questioning of the government’s commitment to the business sector. I can assure the Assembly and members of the business community that our commitment is solid, as is our determination to ensure that we direct our business support strategically and wisely, gaining the maximum value for the community and business sector as a whole.
The government has not wavered in its commitment to form sound business partnerships. This concept drove the private sector program to establish commercial offices in the US and China, and it has driven the funding of the consortium led by the Canberra Business Council to enable ScreenACT to operate in the private sector and to identify sources of industry development support to foster high quality content, creative skills development and an ACT-based screen culture.
We have always been a government that is supportive of small business, and our commitment to this is as strong today as it was in 2004. What small and micro
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