Supporting Australia's Exporters

Supporting Australia's Exporters—2019 submission

Australia’s exports are too small and too concentrated. We are well under the OECD average for export intensity. What we do export comes from a small number of businesses selling a small number of commodities, and those sales are disproportionately to one market. Too few Australian SMEs export. This needs to change.

The Australian Government must put growing Australia’s international trade at the heart of its business agenda. This should involve coordinating all the levers at its disposal—policy, service delivery and regulation—and ensure all are directed towards the same objectives.

It is vital that trade is viewed through the prism of the entire business journey: from giving businesses confidence to think internationally, to helping them have the capabilities to act internationally, to helping them find the right buyers in overseas markets, to ensuring that when they make a sale they face as few barriers as possible.

The ECA recommends the the Australian Government:

1. set a policy of diversifying Australia’s trade (the destinations, industries and the businesses) and develop an overarching strategy to achieve this diversification

2. give the trade minister a clear mandate to coordinate and oversee trade-related activities across government

3. adequately resource trade-related agencies and the Export Market Development Grant

4. conduct a major review of export regulation to re-evaluate what is regulated, why it is regulated and how it regulated.

Supporting Australia's Exporters—2019 submission

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Leandra Coffey, Director, Fruity Sacks
Member of the ECA

“Our business is about making it easy for people to make environmentally friendly choices. We are looking to expand into new overseas markets and the ECA have been a huge help in this endeavour. The ECA have given us introductions to key businesses that can help us in the markets we are looking at, and their workshops and seminars on topics relevant to exporting were extremely useful. All up, our association with the ECA has been a great asset to Fruity Sacks.”

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