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The Adelaide Advertiser reports that German firm Thyssen Krupp Marine
Systems is looking at the feasability of buying South Australian firm ASC, currently owned by the Australian Federal Government. Thyssen Krupp is engaged in a bidding process to supply the Australian Navy with its next fleet of submarines. Thyssen Krupp is suggesting that it will expand the yard and would like to supply other countries with vessels in the future.
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Free Trade with Australia? Politico’s Ryan Heath has noted in today’s insider news from Brussels that a free trade agreement with Australia and New Zealand is being bumped up the priority list in the European Commission. This is definitely good news for Australian companies trading in Europe and those companies interested in doing business “down under”. Hopefully the agreement won’t get bogged down in the same discussions as the Canadian CETA agreement and the TTIP agreement with the US.
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Kevin Andrews, the defence minister in Australia, is
currently in Germany and will be visiting ThyssenKrupp’s marine systems shipyards on Thursday 23rd April, as reported in the Australian. ThyssenKrupp together with Siemens is hoping to win a potentially lucrative contract to replace Australia’s aging Collins class submarines.
Wikipedia has a detailed article on the issues behind the submarines and the current negotiations here.
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The Prime Minister of Australia and the German Chancellor have announced the membership of the newly created Australia-Germany Advisory Group. The purpose of the group is to examine ways to build even closer ties between Australia and Germany and was set up during Chancellor Merkel’s visit to Australia for the G20 Summit and bilateral meetings last November.
Australian Senator Mathias Cormann will co-chair the Advisory Group and lead the Australian members, who hold collectively significant experience in business, academia, science, government and the arts and German Minister of State Professor Maria Böhmer will be Germany’s co-chair.
The Group will meet in Germany and in Australia before finalising and providing a report to Chancellor Merkel and the Prime Minister later this year.
Full list of members:
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The 2015 Benchmark Report has been launched by the Minister for Trade and Investment Andrew Robb at Australia Business Week in India.
Produced by the Australian Trade Commission (Austrade), the annual report presents key economic, financial and demographic data to highlight Australia’s competitive strengths as a major player in global trade and investment.
Speaking at the inaugural Australia India Business Summit in New Delhi, Mr Robb said, ‘Behind Australia’s commercial strengths is a great economic and social story.
‘The Benchmark Report contains some of the best measures of why Australia is such a good economic partner and an ideal investment destination.’
Australia offers international investors a combination of solid economic performance, a highly skilled workforce, legal and political stability, and growing business and cultural ties to Asia.
The country is entering its 24th year of uninterrupted annual economic growth and its average annual real GDP growth between 2015 and 2019 is expected to be the highest among major advanced economies. Its services sector generates more than 80 per cent of its economic output.
New to the 2015 edition is a set of charts that provides snapshots of Australia’s five globally significant industries – agribusiness, education, funds management, resources and energy, and tourism.
The report also highlights Australia’s advanced research and innovation capabilities; educated and multicultural workforce; trade, investment and cultural links within the fast-growing Asian region; stable, transparent and well-regulated business environment; and sophisticated financial sector.
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Australian graphite company Talga Resources has announced that it will set up a graphene demonstration
plant in the German state of Thüringen. The plant will process ores from Sweden.
Graphene is a so-called allotrope of carbon which has the form of a two-dimension hexagonal lattice. It was invented by two researchers at the University of Manchester in the UK, who jointly won the Nobel prize for Physics.
The material has already been used in a number of electronics applications and is thought to have a large variety of uses, which are currently being investigated around the world.
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A recent report on Germany Trade and Invest website discusses the issues on waste management in Australia. The OECD states that Australia is the seventh largest producer of refuse/trash per head of population. Further details can be found in German on GTAI’s website here.
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Emirates has announced new flights to Düsseldorf that will connect through to Australian destinations. As of 1st July, EK055 will be operated by an A380, leaving Dubai at 0830hrs and landing in Dusseldorf at 1325hrs the same day, while EK056 will depart Dusseldorf at 1525hrs and arrive at Dubai International Airport at 2355hrs the same day.
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The Australian Parliament passed the Intellectual Property Laws amendment bill on 9 February 2015. Its major feature of interest to German exporters will be the establishment of a joint Trans-Tasman regime with New Zealand to have a single application and examination process for both countries. The Governor General still has to sign the bill and, as New Zealand have already amended their laws examination should begin soon.
Local Australian pharmaceutical companies may also be able to benefit from a new provision allowing the grant of a compulsory license to a patent to supply countries suffering a health crisis. This implements an obligation that Australia has under the World Trade Organisation rules.
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Dear Members and Friends of our Association,
The tag I used for 2013 in the last End of Year Message, was “change”. Change continued to be a defining feature for our association in 2014, the major change, of course, being that of our name to “German Australian Business Council e.V.”. Aside from this, we elected a new board, welcomed our new Patron and also introduced a refreshed strategy. What has not changed though is our continued focus on providing our members and friends with high quality events across Germany. This included an increase in events in the Berlin region.
We started off the year with an Australia Day lunch at Frankfurt, supported by corporate member Telstra, followed by an event with Telstra’s CTO, Dr. Hugh Bradlow, to which members of our association were invited. Our signature event, the Annual Ambassador’s Dinner, took place in Berlin in June and marked the welcome of H.E. David Ritchie AO, as Patron of our association. The event was supported by corporate members Austrade, Sonic Healthcare, Telstra and Scout24. The highlight event for Frankfurt in the past year would certainly have been the new edition of the Melbourne Cup Event, which was attended by approx. 150 people and took place at the Adina Apartment Hotel with support from corporate member Melbourne Business School, sponsors Tourism Victoria, Emirates, Victorian Racing Club and many other eminent businesses. The key event in the Munich region was certainly the German Australian Business and Technology Forum organized by Austrade with our association as one of the partners. Further prominent business events were a presentation by Peter Sargent from ANZ in Frankfurt, a lunch seminar with Johann Mittermayer from Woolmark, also in Frankfurt,,a networking event showcasing Sonic Healthcare’s outstanding cutting-edge medical laboratory in Berlin and the annual Oktoberfest Event in Munich sponsored by long-time corporate member mic AG, who were again joined by corporate member Telstra.
A preliminary events calendar for 2015 has already been prepared by the board and will again feature our signature events Australia Day, the Ambassador’s Dinner and the Melbourne Cup Event, together with many others showcasing various industries. The Australia Day Event in Frankfurt on 26th January 2015 will also mark the re-launch of our association as the German Australian Business Council. The 2015 Ambassador’s Dinner will again be held at Frankfurt in the week commencing 8 June 2015, with the Melbourne Cup event taking place on 3rd November 2015.
On the international side, there is increasing combined effort to expand the network and leverage off each other’s business connections. We are looking at introducing a joint newsletter and a joint landing page. 2015 will also mark the first pan-European event, scheduled to take place at the European Parliament at Brussels in April. The international group is rapidly expanding with Greece, Switzerland and the Czech Republic having joined the group and a prospect for revival in Denmark and perhaps Luxemburg.
The start of a year is always an opportunity to say thank you for all the support our association has received from various sources. First and foremost, I would like to thank you as our members and friends for the support you have given us over the past year, in particular with respect to implementing the changes that the board had envisaged in order to take our association to the next level of growth.
I would like to thank my fellow board members, who have fulfilled their various roles with much enthusiasm and great dedication. While all board members deserve praise, I would like to direct a very special thank you to Catherine Stephen for enormous efforts in organizing Frankfurt events, Deputy Chair Elisabeth Opie for guiding us through the process of the strategy refresh, Roanne Yee and Penelope Richardson for taking on the enormous task of rebranding as the German Australian Business Council and overseeing the overhaul of the website, Rob Harrison for giving the newsletter a new outfit, Eberhard Goihl for tireless administrative work in the background and Claas de Boer and Simone Wienhausen for firmly grounding the presence of our association in Berlin.
I would also like to thank those who have supported us from an administrative point of view, namely Susanne Schnack, our office, and my P.A. Jacqueline Fehse, for all-round admin support regarding events and more. Susanne, who has been our office for the last 1.5 years and has done a splendid job looking after our accounts and administrating events, has decided to move on to an (almost) full-time job and will conclude her role with the German Australian Business Council in early January. We are sad to see her go and I would like to take this opportunity to once again thank her for excellent work for the German Australian Business Council and wish her well in her future role
Sabine Pittrof (Chair of the board)