Speech

Address by: Peter O'Byrne, Austrade CEO
Event: Australia's 50 Most Beautiful Exports Awards
Date: 14 December 2006

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Thank you Melissa (Hoyer – MC) for your introduction.

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen …

Today we are here to celebrate the many wonderful Australians and Australian companies promoting our country to the world.

These are the people who inspire the hearts of other Australians to take their talent and expertise to the world, to demonstrate the uniqueness that is a strong trait of this country. 

In previous years, the 50 Most Beautiful Export Awards have acknowledged a wide variety of outstanding people, places and companies such as:

- Cate Blanchett
- Kosta Tszyu
- Graeme Murphy
- Mambo
- Uluru
- Casella Wines
- The Television series Neighbours 
- R.M. Williams

… to name just a few.  There are, of course, many many more.

The business of Austrade is encouraging Australia’s export performance.  Around the world we are seeing:

- our designers starring on the leading catwalks of the world
- sports men and women headlining global events
- artists and musicians gaining recognition on the global stage

The image of our country and our trade are interwoven.  Business and creativity walk hand in hand.

An excellent example is The Wiggles. They have built a global business with a distinct Australian character, loved by children worldwide.  Worldwide sales of Wiggles DVDs and videos now exceed $17 million.  Last year, 1 million fans attended their live concerts across the globe. 

In 2005, The Wiggles won the Exporter of the Year Award at the Australian Export Awards for their outstanding contribution.

Our thoughts are with Greg Page, one of the group’s founding members. We hope his health improves.

This story is continued in many other parts of our Arts, Film and Fashion industries.

For many years, the Sydney Dance Company have been great ambassadors for Australia.  Their repertoire has received international acclaim for their vivid and inventive choreography.  They have performed to audiences in over 100 cities in North and South America, Asia and Europe.  We are pleased to be here in their studio today and thank Graeme Murphy.

We have also seen Australia’s image promoted via the fashion industry.  Australian designers will showcase their designs at an exclusive catwalk show to be held as part of the G’day USA: Australia Week 2007 celebration, in January in New York. 

In film, Australia’s acclaimed directors, actors and special effects teams compete with the best in the world. World renown director George Miller, assisted by a team of animators from the production company ‘Animal Logic’ based in Sydney, recently launched ‘Happy Feet’.  In the first weekend of release in the US and Canada, box office receipts were greater than US$100 million. The film recently overtook the latest Bond film, Casino Royale, to reach number one in the UK. ‘Happy Feet’ opens here in Australia on Boxing Day.

Let’s now look at another of our flagship exports – our Wine industry. 

Wine export sales have continued to grow, increasing by a huge 408% in the ten years from 1996 to 2006.  Our good supply, flexible winemaking practices and skilled infrastructure have contributed to our global reputation as a sophisticated producer attracting numerous awards for excellence.

The Australian wine company, Peter Lehmann Wines, recently won the International Winemaker of the Year award at the prestigious International Wine and Spirit competition in London – they also won in 2003. 

Image and business walk hand in hand.

Boost Juice Bars is a good example.  They have capitalized on the global trend of a healthy lifestyle, successful branding, Australia’s clean, green image, and our reputation for positive lifestyle choices, and built a strong export market. 

In a little over a year, Boost have established master franchise agreements in Indonesia, Chile, the Gulf Countries, Singapore, South Africa, UK and Hong Kong.

It would be remiss if I did not include our international sports stars – and the business of sport – when acknowledging Australia’s outstanding exports. 

Our sports men and women are also continuing to project a positive image of Australia to the world.

The skills required for staging major international events have also become a renowned feature of Australian business capability.

At Austrade, Business Club Australia has been very successful in using the profile of leading sporting events as the vehicle for networking opportunities for Australian and international organisations, to create business connections and generate export sales.

The 2006 Commonwealth Games proved successful in exciting a national and international audience as well as attracting almost 4000 international business people to Melbourne. 

The Melbourne Cup – one of Australia’s great events – also proved an excellent platform to introduce overseas business organisations to Australian capabilities.

Future events that Business Club Australia will focus on include the Rugby World Cup to be held in France in 2007.

When considering ‘Beautiful Exports’ we should remember the natural beauty of this country.  Look around us, Sydney Harbour is one of our great icons – helping drive one of our most important export sectors, tourism, representing almost half of all our services exports.

I would now like to congratulate and thank the people and companies who continue to enhance Australia’s image internationally and grow our export business.

In closing, I would like to thank event organisers, the Charlton Group, for helping to raise the awareness of the benefits of exporting.

Thank you.