Queensland's transformation into a Smart State is well under way. Since 1998, the Queensland Government has been investing in the key drivers of growth that are turning Queensland into a globally competitive knowledge-based economy.
These drivers include maintaining strong economic fundamentals while investing in education, training, social and economic infrastructure that will translate economic growth into jobs and a better quality of life in the future.
Queensland demonstrates outstanding performance in the strong economic foundations which are essential precursors to smart growth. A strong economy delivers the wealth and opportunity for greater investment in innovation-led growth, creating globally competitive businesses and bringing the latest advances in science and technology for the benefit of all Queenslanders.
Queensland's rich resource base is, and will continue to be, an important contributor to the State's strong economic performance. Effective protection and management of the State's resource base has been a core element of the Smart State Strategy and a number of measures are in place to deliver sustainable environmental outcomes.
A key priority of the Smart State Strategy is to diversify the Queensland economy by complementing our natural strengths and resources. This means accelerating the growth of technology-intensive industries such as biotechnology, aviation and information technology where the application of human knowledge and creativity creates most of the wealth and generates higher value jobs for people.
Key areas of investment for smart growth which are evaluated in the Smart State Progress Report 2006/07 are raising educational standards, increasing the supply of highly skilled workers, boosting research, fostering new innovative industries, and ensuring existing industries are best able to adopt new technologies and practices.
The key performance highlights presented in this brochure provide a brief summary of the more comprehensive evaluation of Queensland's progress presented in the Smart State Progress Report 2006/07.
