Page 3230 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 17 September 2013
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The strategic opportunities fund provided grants of $347,000 to four Canberra research groups to develop leading edge collaborative research projects. Of particular interest was a grant of $150,000 to the University of Canberra for the development of an environmental chamber at its sports hub. As a result of this funding, the AIS contributed a further $100,000 to the facility.
Our commitment of $1.5 million in this year’s budget for the global connect program has seen the first ever ACT trade mission to Indonesia, ScreenACT’s first trade mission in France and the establishment of the Centre for Exporting Government Solutions to build ACT exports, particularly to other public sector markets focusing on the United States and Asia.
The establishment of study Canberra recognises the importance of education exports. Over the last 10 years exports from the ACT’s services sector have increased from $800 million to $1.4 billion, an increase of 75 per cent. The education sector has played a major role in this growth, and the government is committed to working with the sector to achieve further growth.
The Chief Minister recently accompanied the vice-chancellors of the Australian National University and the University of Canberra on an education mission to China. The mission demonstrated our strong commitment to growing our international student market, to reiterating the importance of the higher education sector to the ACT and to promoting the many benefits of studying and living in Canberra.
As a result of our work with the ANU and the business community, Entry 29, a shared working space incubator, was established in the ANU Exchange precinct. In 2012 we doubled the CollabIT budget to $100,000. CollabIT does an excellent job in promoting SMEs as innovative companies and establishing partnerships between government agencies, small and medium-size enterprises and multinationals. A recent member survey found that CollabIT members contributed $92,000 in revenue in 2012-13 to the program, and 81 per cent of respondents expected to derive business success in the 2013-14 fiscal year as a result of their engagement in the program.
And, of course, we continue to support the tourism industry. Tourism is another vital part of the ACT economy, both as an economic driver and, crucially, creating jobs. The tourism industry currently contributes $1.65 billion to the ACT economy and is one of the territory’s largest private sector employers, supporting 16,000 jobs. This represents 7.7 per cent of total employment in the territory. Recent tourism initiatives have contributed to growing overnight visitation in the ACT. There was a nine per cent increase in domestic overnight visitors to the territory for the year ending June 2013 and a 10.2 per cent increase in domestic overnight visitors during the first six months of Canberra’s centenary year. This increase was dominated by growth in the visiting friends and relatives market, which saw an increase of 17.1 per cent for overnight visitors and 31.1 per cent for visitor nights. Domestic visitor expenditure also increased by $159 million for the year ending June 2013.
When looking at international visitation to the ACT, there was a 10.4 per cent increase in international visitors for the year ending June 2013 and a 22.9 per cent
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