General Information

The name Australia is derived from the Latin australis, meaning "southern".
The name Australia was popularized by the explorer Matthew Flinders, who pushed for it
to be formally adopted as early as 1804. When preparing his manuscript and charts for his
1814 A Voyage to Terra Australis, he was persuaded by his patron, Sir Joseph Banks, to use the
term Terra Australis as this was the name most familiar to the public. Flinders did so, but
allowed himself the footnote:
"Had I permitted myself any innovation on the original term, it would have been to convert it to
Australia; as being more agreeable to the ear, and an assimilation to the names of the other great
portions of the earth."
Today, after more than 242 years from the first time James Cook charted Australia and
claimed it in the name of Her Majesty, the Queen, Australia’s population measures around 22.62
million people, in total.
In the 2011 Australian census, the most commonly nominated ancestry was English (36.1
per cent), followed by Australian (35.4 per cent), Irish (10.4 per cent), Scottish (8.9 per
cent), Italian (4.6 per cent), German (4.5 per cent), Chinese (4.3 per cent), Indian (2.0 per
cent), Greek (1.9 per cent), and Dutch (1.7 per cent). Asian Australians make up 12% of the
population.
Australia's population has quadrupled since the end of World War I. Nevertheless,
its population density, 2.8 inhabitants per square kilometer, remains among the lowest in the
world. Much of the population increase came from immigration. Following World War II and
through to 2000, almost 5.9 million of the total population settled in the country as new
immigrants, meaning that nearly two out of every seven Australians were born in another
country.
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland
of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. It is the

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world's sixth-largest country by total area. Neighboring countries include Indonesia, East
Timor and Papua New Guinea to the north; the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia to
the north-east; and New Zealand to the south-east.

Partner and Member of Trade Agreements

Across the globe, there is an expanding network of free trade agreements (FTAs). Free
trade agreements can play an important role in supporting global trade liberalization and are
explicitly allowed for under the World Trade Organization (WTO) rules.

FTAs can cover entire regions with multiple participants or link just two economies.
Australia has six FTAs currently in force with New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, US,
Chile and (with New Zealand) the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). The
countries covered by these FTAs account for 28 per cent of Australia's total trade.
Australia is currently engaged in eight FTA negotiations - five bilateral FTA negotiations:
China, Japan, Korea, India and Indonesia; and three multilateral FTA negotiations: the Trans-
Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), and a Pacific trade
and economic agreement (PACER Plus). Australia concluded negotiations with Malaysia in May
2012 and the agreement is subject to domestic approval processes.
The countries covered by these negotiations account for a further 44 per cent of Australia's
trade.
FTAs are helping Australian exporters access new markets and expand trade in existing
markets.

Trade Policies
Businesses engage in trade, so why not leave their buying and selling activities to the
market? The answer is that governments are involved in trade transactions between businesses.
Government involvement can be through laws and regulations, such as in the services sector or
customs duties (tariffs); limits on the amounts of goods that can be imported or exported;
quarantine restrictions; subsidies for domestic industries; and taxes, fees and charges applied to
all transactions, local and international.

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 In Australia lowering trade barriers and opening up the Australian economy has been well
worthwhile in its own right and the benefits from doing so have not depended on other countries
lowering their trade barriers.
Nevertheless, other countries have been lowering their trade barriers at the same time as
Australia, increasing the overall gains from trade liberalization by improving market access for
Australian exporters. Among Australia's major trading partners in the Asia-Pacific region, which
buy 70 per cent of Australia's exports, average tariffs have been cut over the last quarter century
from more than 25 per cent to around 5 per cent (Productivity Commission 2010, p.41).
Opening the service markets to competition improves their range and quality while
restraining their cost, generating economic dividends for domestic consumers and their exporting
and import-competing industries. The Gillard Government has understood this and is pursuing a
reform program to ensure Australia has one of the most open services sectors in the world.
But it is no good being competitive if access to foreign markets is blocked or heavily
impeded. Complementing a set of policy measures to boost the competitiveness of Australian
exporters of goods and services, trade promotion policies can increase the penetration of those
competitive exports into foreign markets.
Australia's official agency for promoting exports is Austrade, established by the Hawke Government in 1985.
Austrade has more than 100 overseas offices operating in 55 countries. In addition to the resources of Austrade, the

Government also regularly uses its diplomatic network to try to resolve impediments to trade and
investment.
Australia works actively to ensure their trading partners live up to their commitments and
to defend their trade interests, including through their active engagement in the dispute
settlement system of the World Trade Organization. More broadly, the Government works to
improve the health of the global trading system, not only through its support for the World Trade
Organization and regional forums, but through its 'aid for trade' programs. Recognizing the link
between participation in international trade, economic growth and poverty reduction, the
Government is refining the use of these programs to strengthen the capacity of developing
countries to participate in international trade.
This extends to the bilateral and regional arenas where economic cooperation has become a
feature of Australia's aid-for-trade engagement with developing country partners, as illustrated in
the case of the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement (AANZFTA). Economic
cooperation supports these partners in bilateral and regional agreements to engage more fully

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during negotiations and, following their conclusion, assists them to implement agreements and
realize the benefits of these agreements. Economic cooperation will be a core feature of the
Indonesia-Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement negotiations.

Volume and Structure of Trade in the last 5 to 10 years

Australia is a wealthy country with a market economy with high GDP per capita and a low
rate of poverty.
An emphasis on exporting commodities rather than manufactured goods has underpinned a
significant increase in Australia's terms of trade since the start of the 21st century, due to rising
commodity prices. Australia has a balance of payments that is more than 7 per cent of GDP
negative, and has had persistently
large current account deficits for
more than 50 years. Australia has
grown at an average annual rate of
3.6 per cent for over 15 years, in
comparison to the OECD annual
average of 2.5 per cent. Australia
was the only advanced economy not
to experience a recession due to
the global financial downturn in
2008–2009. Six of Australia's major
trading partners had been in
recession which in turn affected Australia, and economic growth was hampered significantly
over recent years.
The value of Australia’s exports of Resources has increased from $57.1 billion in 2001 to
$190.5 billion in 2011 (see Chart 1). This represents an average growth of 15.0 per cent per year,
compared with total Australian exports that grew by just 8.4 per cent on average per annum (and
non-resource exports growing by just 2.8 per cent per annum). Resources as a share of
Australia’s exports accounted for 36.2 per cent in 2001, rising to 60.8 per cent in 2011.

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 In volume terms, Resources exports experienced an average annual growth of 3.5 per cent,
compared with total Australian exports, which rose by an average 2.7 per cent per annum over
the period.
Growth in both value and volume terms has been stronger in the past five years (2006 to
2011) with export values rising by an average 13.5 per cent per annum and volumes rising 4.5
per cent. This rise was driven by demand for resources by emerging economies, such as China
and India.

Trade contribution to the GDP and the main 5 Trade Partners

If we are to study the data presented in the above section we can see how the overall
increase in the value of the traded goods has influenced the Increase in GDP. For is due to the
increase in value, not that of volume that has aided in the increase of Australia’s GDP in the
previous years and that is more or less due to the world economic crisis.
Because of the liberal trade policy that the Australian government implements, this allows
for home prices to align to world prices in the detriment of the, although slightly increasing
volume of trade.
In the same time, we cannot attribute the bulk of the increase in trade solely to the increase
in value of the exports but also, in order to truly appreciate it, we need to take a look at the
overall structure of imports which are mostly due to merchandise and commercial service
imports measuring roughly about 251 billion USD (33,8% from East Asia and Pacific, 0,5%
Europe and Central Asia, 1,8% Latin America and Caribbean, 0.3% Middle East and North

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Africa, 1.13 South Asia, 1.29 Sub-Saharan Africa, 1.9 the Arab World; roughly 41% of its
Imports)
Given into consideration total amount of exports and imports, Australia is able to produce
for others more than it buys for itself and that leads to a constant and impressive increase in
GDP.

World Trade Organization

Australia has been a WTO member since 1 January 1995. Since then, Australia has become
a major asset to the WTO and its main target is to uphold and to see that all the other countries,
parties to the WTO, respect the rules and keep in terms with the agreements made.
Key tenets of Australia's trade policy include support for open trade and the successful
culmination of the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations, particularly for agriculture and
services.

Conclusions
Australia is a wealthy country with a market economy with high GDP per capita and a low
rate of poverty.
A highly developed country, Australia is the world's 12th-largest economy and has the
world's sixth-highest per capita income. Australia's military expenditure is the world's 13th
largest. With the second-highest human development index globally, Australia ranks highly in
many international comparisons of national performance, such as quality of life, health,
education, economic freedom, and the protection of civil liberties and political rights. Australia is
a member of the G20, OECD, WTO, APEC, UN, Commonwealth of Nations, ANZUS, and
the Pacific Islands Forum.

References
Gillard Government Trade Policy Statement: Trading our way to more jobs and prosperity-April 2011
Australia’s Resources exports 2001 to 2011-pdf-
http://www.dfat.gov.au/publications/stats-pubs/australias-resources-exports-2001-to-2011.pdf
http://www.worldbank.org/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia
http://www.wto.org/ http://www.australia.com/
http://www.dfat.gov.au/

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