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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Yoshinori Sakuno,
Group Managing Director, doq®
Member of the ECA

"Our mission is to connect Australia and Japan – by using our local knowledge to service clients in the Asia Pacific region that we can grow with. This allows us to develop cross-cultural marketing solutions that are mutually beneficial, both for our Australian and international partners. Being a part of the ECA has been an important asset to our growth; setting a high bar to reach for, providing a valuable network, introducing us to new leads and informing us of changing trends. We look forward to continuing to be the specialists in anything Japan-related and are proud to be associated with the ECA."

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Down Under Enterprises grows, produces, exports, and markets traceable and sustainable native Australian essential oils and botanicals. We source from their farm, Buhlambar, and also from small growers across Australia.

Founded in 1991 in a spare bedroom to sell Tea Tree Oil from Dee-Ann’s parents’ farm, Down Under Enterprises has since grown to support over three dozen Australian farming families.