Page 2 | Budget highlights. | Shenzhen opportunities.
Page 3 | Recycling is good for business. | Business support.
Page 4 | Industry insight – manufacturing. | Brisbane’s tourism boom.
The 2017-18 Brisbane City Council Budget, which I handed down on 14 June, is a positive plan delivering infrastructure, including the Brisbane Metro, leisure and lifestyle opportunities and improving the economic prosperity of the city.
Council is committed to improving the road network with $1 billion in funding to take real action on traffic congestion, while delivering smoother suburban streets to get residents home quickly and safely with more travel options.
We will continue planning for the Brisbane Metro to reduce bus congestion in the inner city, cut travel times and improve reliability of public transport services for metropolitan passengers.
Now that Council is 100% carbon neutral, we have joined the international Love Food Hate Waste movement, with almost $1 million over three years to arm Brisbane residents with the knowledge they need to reduce the amount of food they dispose of from their household each week. This is good for the environment but it will also save Brisbane residents money because of the significant costs associated with rubbish going to landfill.
Budget highlights are featured in this edition of Business in Brisbane, and more information can be found at brisbane.qld.gov.au or by contacting your local councillor.
Graham Quirk
LORD MAYOR
Local designer Jodie Hilton has won Council’s Innovation Award, a $25,000 grant to help develop her creative business.
Jodie competed against two other shortlisted applicants for the annual award, which is designed to encourage an innovative and enterprising creative workforce.
Her business, The New Garde, based in the CBD, offers emerging designers collaborative work spaces, industry expertise, networking opportunities and commercial support to help them develop their business.
For more information, visit brisbane.qld.gov.au and search ‘Innovation Award’.
With a focus on support for small business and nurturing innovation to create economic growth with more jobs across Brisbane, Council has increased its investment in economic development to $441.4 million in 2017-18.
For small business, Council’s $1 million investment over four years to extend Council’s current free Wi-Fi offering into eight suburban centres will continue this financial year, and include Wynnum CBD and Sandgate Town Centre.
Small business will also benefit from ongoing investment of $1.5 million in Council’s Business Hotline 133 BNE, a 24/7 resource through which businesses can access information on a range of Council topics including licencing, development applications, business opportunities and procurement.
In generating economic opportunities for the city, Council has allocated $6.3 million for leisure tourism, conventions and major events, with an aim to attract significant events to Brisbane.
As an event city, Council will partner with the State Government for the Commonwealth Games to help showcase Brisbane to the world, while also rolling out initiatives to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Expo 88 and facilitating the Wynnum Beach volleyball activation.
Attracting leisure tourism, conventions and major events to the city has enormous economic benefits for Brisbane and is a key focus of this year’s Council budget, with a $6.3 million investment in this space.
As part of the Brisbane 2022 New World City Action Plan, these areas were identified as providing a significant opportunity for the city and in 2017-18 Council along with Brisbane Marketing, will look to take advantage of this key growth sector.
This includes working with regional partners to facilitate increased tourism, major events, export, investment and infrastructure opportunities and delivering a regional approach to economic development.
Key deliverables will include building upon the success of the inaugural Brisbane Global Rugby Tens, in addition to a continued emphasis on ensuring all major events are leveraged to maximise the economic, social and cultural benefits.
Council works with the local business community to take advantage of these opportunities as part of our commitment to economic growth and more local jobs.
Interested in business opportunities in China? This year marks the 25th anniversary of Brisbane’s sister city relationship with Shenzhen, a thriving metropolis considered to be the epitome of China’s drive towards modernisation.
Brisbane and Shenzhen linked up in 1992 to enhance the economic interests in both cities.
Often referred to as the gateway to China’s main technology manufacturing area, Guangdong, Shenzhen is one of China’s main ports for foreign trade and international exchange, becoming China’s first Special Economic Zone during the 1980s.
As the relationship goes from strength-to-strength, Brisbane and Shenzhen have developed a series of initiatives to mark the milestone, with a particular focus on technology, start-ups and business.
These include targeted business introductions for companies in both cities, as well as a number of education, sports and cultural events.
Key business opportunities exist in Shenzhen in technology, financial services, logistics and cultural industries.
To find out more about these opportunities, email internationalrelations@brisbane.qld.gov.au
Recycling can benefit your business as well as the environment. By improving the way you manage your organisation’s resources, you’ll gain a competitive edge by achieving efficiencies, saving money and aligning your business with reputable values.
New tools and resources are now available to help your business minimise waste and streamline operations. Get started with Council’s free online assessment tool to learn about your current waste volumes and behaviours. Other resources include free downloadable signs, posters and fact sheets.
You can also sign up for the four-week recycling challenge to receive free expert recycling advice, ongoing support and recognition for your business’s commitment to recycling. The first 300 businesses to sign up will also receive a free onsite consultation with a recycling expert.
For more information, visit brisbane.qld.gov.au or call 3403 8888.
Council’s planning scheme, systems and processes have been updated in line with the Queensland Government’s new planning legislation, which came into effect this month. While there are no policy changes to the Brisbane City Plan 2014, development assessment customers will notice new processes and assessment timeframes, along with changed terminology and features related to new regulations. Visit brisbane.qld.gov.au and search ‘Planning Reform’ for more information.
Looking to develop strategic business opportunities in the Asia Pacific? The 2017 Asia Pacific Cities Summit & Mayors’ Forum is taking place in Daejeon, South Korea from 10-13 September. It attracts more than 1500 leaders from across 100 cities and is renowned for helping businesses gain entry and expand into key markets. For more information and to register, visit apcsummit.org
Whether you’re starting a new business or have an established business in Brisbane, Council is here to support you.
Did you know Council has a dedicated 24 hour a day, seven day a week hotline to support businesses?
Launched in 2012, the Business Hotline provides information on a range of Council topics including licensing, development applications, business opportunities and procurement, with 90% of businesses agreeing the hotline makes it easier to do business in Brisbane.
The most common topics of enquiry to the Business Hotline include City Plan advice, procurement support, food business licensing, advertising signs, as well as filming and events.
For more information, call 133 BNE (133 263).
Are you looking for network, recruitment or business opportunities? Follow Council on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/company/brisbane-city-council
Greater Brisbane’s employment forecast 2031: 1,532,200
Advanced manufacturing is a key growth sector for Brisbane.
Advanced manufacturers are firms which engage in “the full cycle of activities from research and development, through design, production, logistics and services, to end-of-life management…” This means the sector itself is quite broad, covering a range of services and functions, in contrast to traditional manufacturers. Advanced manufacturing goes beyond the production line to capture the more complex trends in manufacturing seen within global value chains and including technological innovation.
It is their capacity as an exporter which makes Advanced Manufacturers so valuable to the local economy, through the income generated by the goods produced and the jobs these firms create. Two key strategic clusters of advanced manufacturing in Brisbane are Australia TradeCoast, which includes Brisbane Airport and the Port of Brisbane and the South West Industrial Gateway, which together support almost 35% of Brisbane’s Advanced Manufacturing jobs.
The biggest sectors of Advanced Manufacturing in Brisbane are shown in the following chart.
Key Facts Highlights
$153 Billion Greater Brisbane Economy
191,486 Greater Brisbane Businesses
2,349,699 Greater Brisbane Population
1,180,507 Greater Brisbane’s Employment
1,532,200 Greater Brisbane’s Employment Forecast 2031
Brisbane City Council uses a range of sources (available at time of print) to compile this information, including Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and Queensland Treasury.
For the full Brisbane Economic Snapshot, please visit brisbane.qld.gov.au/business and search ‘Economic Snapshot’.
Brisbane’s tourism boom
Brisbane’s tourism industry continues to go from strength to strength, with 7.2 million visitors to Brisbane in 2016, the largest number on record and a 5% increase on 2015.
Leisure travel accounted for most of the growth, with almost 75% of this increase due to domestic holiday travellers. Approximately 18% was due to international holiday travellers and a further 8% was from overseas travellers visiting friends and relatives.
Spending also increased, with tourists injecting $5.6 billion into the local Brisbane economy. This figure increased 1.3% from 2015, with most of this growth attributed to international visitors. This increase in spending occurred even as the average length of trips decreased by 7% to 20 nights. The average length of domestic trips remained consistent at three nights.
The number of visitors from each state reached record levels in 2016, with the majority of domestic leisure visitors from New South Wales and Victoria. Meanwhile, visitors from mainland China accounted for over half of the growth in international visitors, continuing a trend which has seen the number of visitors from mainland China double over the past five years. At the same time, the number of international visitors from other countries also reached a new record in 2016.
One important factor buoying Brisbane tourism has been the low Australian dollar, which remained below US$0.80 throughout 2016. This has not only contributed to making Brisbane a competitive international destination, but has also encouraged Australian visitors to holiday locally. This tourism boom has been facilitated by Council’s efforts to improve tourism infrastructure.
In 2011, Council introduced a reduction in infrastructure charges for four and five-star hotel developments to encourage new development. Since then, more than 3170 four and five-star rooms have been added to the market (an increase of 36%). The increase in four and five-star rooms has been particularly important for accommodating overseas visitors, with the number of international visitors staying in four and five-star accommodation doubling since 2011.
Cameron Mitchell is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of TrademarkVision, a world leader in image recognition technology.
The Brisbane-based start-up, which also has staff in San Francisco and Pittsburgh, launched the world’s first visual search for trademarks in 2013. Before this, the only way to find trademark images was through time-consuming and error-prone text-based searching. TrademarkVision uses cutting-edge machine learning and image recognition technology to protect world brands and Cameron believes their passion is the driving force behind the company’s success.
“Our founder and CEO Sandra Mau is exceptionally passionate and that passion is very contagious,” he said.
“Trademarks is very much a changing industry at the moment and for this sort of technology we need to ensure our staff are experts to tackle this global problem.
”Landing major contracts with the European Union Intellectual Property Office and IP Australia for algorithms that can detect and compare logos, the company is well and truly on its way to bigger and better things with Brisbane at the centre of it all.
“When I graduated school in 1996, Brisbane was a speck on the world stage compared to now,” Cameron said.
“It’s amazing to come home to Brisbane and be part of a start-up culture like this.”
For more information, visit https://trademark.vision/
18 July – Social Media 101
Learn the basics for building a social media strategy and managing your online social presence, 5.45-8pm, The Colmslie Hotel, Morningside, $38.50, to register visit www.digitalbrisbane.com.au/events
21 July – League of extraordinary women
Are you a female entrepreneur or thinking of owning your own business? Connect with likeminded women, 12 noon-1.30pm, Showroom Brisbane, Brisbane CBD, from $20 for non-league members, to register visit eventbrite.com.au
1 August – How to improve your website’s search ranking
Hear about how to structure your website and create content to improve your search engine optimisation, 5.45-8pm, Boulevard Gardens, Indooroopilly, $38.50, to register visit www.digitalbrisbane.com.au/events
25 August – Executive lunch
Are you a business owner or senior manager with five or more staff and open to innovative thinking? Mingle with likeminded professionals, 11.45am-2.15pm, Regatta Hotel, Toowong, $137.50, to register visit www.eventbrite.com.au
5 September – How to make your first online sale
Hear about the pros and cons of e-commerce and how to succeed in online sales, 5.45-8pm, Broncos Leagues Club, Red Hill, $38.50, to register visit www.digitalbrisbane.com.au/events
Council is continually working on plans and strategies to support innovation and economic growth. Your feedback is highly valued.
Contact Council’s Business Hotline 133 BNE (133 263), email economic_development@brisbane.qld.gov.au or visit www.brisbane.qld.gov.au
Every effort is made to ensure that information is correct at time of printing
© Brisbane City Council 2017
GPO Box 1434, Brisbane Qld 4001
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