I was invited to address the British Business Lunch Group in Sydney for their end of year event. It was an opportunity to set out the range of things we do to support business here. In my speech here I explained that this is a top priority for all of our ambassadors.
Of the nearly 100 staff in our 5 posts around Australia, 36 work for UK Trade & Investment. UKTI is charged with meeting the government’s target of increasing UK exports to £1 trn by 2020. We’re doing our bit in Australia, where exports are up 65% over the last 6 years and now stand at around £10bn, with cars and automotive components, specialized machinery and services doing particularly well. This year our UKTI team will have helped 2000 companies, up 25% on last year, contributing to business sales of over £100m. Most of the UKTI staff are in the major population centres, but we have a small Defence Sales team based in Canberra looking for opportunities for British companies to participate in Australia’s military procurement programmes.
A fifth of the UKTI team work on promoting investment into the UK. Last year they supported 63 investment projects from Australia into the UK. The main sectors were ICT, Life Sciences and Business, Professional and Financial Services. The British government is also increasingly working to encourage foreign institutional investment in our ambitious infrastructure plans. Australian superannuation funds are already big players in UK water, power and airports.
In addition to the UKTI team’s direct role with business, the prosperity team at the High Commission in Canberra work with their opposite numbers in the Australian government on a range of policy issues which influence the business environment in third countries, like corruption, transparency and regulatory regimes. These are some of the things that the Brisbane G20 discussed. They also work on trade policy, so will be even busier if an EU/Australia FTA, which PM Cameron called for during his visit, gets underway in due course.
Another area of activity to support our commercial work is the GREAT campaigns which promote the UK’s national brand. These involve our communications team and external partners like the British Council and Visit Britain. The business aspects of our work have been a very important and really enjoyable part of my time in Australia.