Foreword
A quiet revolution is transforming Queensland. For the past six years the government has worked with the people of our state to build a new Queensland, with better education and training systems, stronger traditional industries, new industries and thousands of new jobs.
Smart State industries with an export focus are employing growing numbers of Queenslanders. Industries like biotechnology, nanotechnology, nutraceuticals, new media, aviation and aerospace, and information and communication technologies are the employers of the future.
These new industries enhance and maintain jobs in traditional sectors like tourism, mining, agriculture and construction.
For example: cutting-edge marine science helps the Great Barrier Reef remain one of the world’s top tourist attractions; clean coal technology is making our biggest export industry greener and more marketable; ethanol and bioplastics may hold the keys to the sugar industry’s future; and computer-aided design and e-tendering are making the building industry more eficient.
To foster new industries the government has invested more than $2.4 billion in science research and innovation, including $125 million through the Smart State Research Facilities Fund.
Our investments are bearing rich fruit.
Queensland’s economy is changing and diversifying as the community and businesses embrace the Smart State ethos, as the following snapshot shows:
- Exports have grown by 24% over the past six years, and now earn $30 billion and account for almost a quarter of Queensland’s economy
- High and medium-high technology manufactured exports grew by more than 50% to $1.2 billion between 1997-98 and 2001-02
- Queensland education exports grew by 56.8% between 1999-00 and 2002-03 to $801 million
- Business research and development spending has increased by about 50% since 1997-98
- ICT employment grew by a quarter between 1998 and 2003
- Employment in the electronic games industry has grown by 30% in the past two years
- Queensland’s bioindustries employ more than 1800 people, and are targeted to employ 10 000 Queenslanders by 2025
- Queensland has moved ahead of the national average in terms of patents granted per capita.
Queensland is fast gaining an international reputation as the Smart State for education, training, research, development, commercialisation and the development of vibrant new industries. The world is learning about our leading-edge institutions and bright and innovative people.
To further promote our strengths, the Queensland Government published a Smart State prospectus, Queensland the Smart State – Investing in Science: Research, Education and Innovation in August 2003.
The following pages update progress in achieving the Smart State vision. They show how Queensland Government policies have shifted our economy’s centre of gravity to place it on a broader, stronger, more confident footing.
As we continue to implement new policies – such as biodiscovery legislation – and new industries start achieving critical mass, the Smart State vision is being realised.
Six years of work have laid the foundations. The most exciting Smart State era – the future – is yet to come!
Peter Beattie
MP Premier of Queensland and Minister for Trade