6 years ago
EXPORT OPPORTUNITIES KEY AGENDA AT WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM
Senator the Hon Michaelia Cash
The Minister for Small and Family Business, Skills and Vocational Education, Michaelia Cash, will be leading the Australian delegation to the World Economic Forum on ASEAN, to be held on 11‑13 September 2018 in Ha Noi, Viet Nam.
The focus of the World Economic Forum will be on ‘ASEAN 4.0: Entrepreneurship and the Fourth Industrial Revolution’. The forum will attract over 500 government and business leaders from around the Asia‑Pacific region.
This follows the highly successful ASEAN‑Australia Special Summit among government leaders and the Business Summit held in Sydney in March this year.
Minister Cash said that the forum would present an opportunity to further strengthen Australia’s links with Asian economies and create opportunities for Australian small to medium business to enter global supply chains by partnering with Asian businesses across key sectors such as agribusiness, vocational education and skills.
“Small business in Australia is 97% of all business in the country, many led by our highly skilled vocationally educated workforce. The Coalition Government is committed to assisting our small businesses to participate in the opportunities created through our Free Trade Agenda and our other trade relationships in the region and building our capability as the skills provider of choice to meet the growing demand from Asia.
“We have a leading reputation in the region across many sectors including skills and vocational education, agribusiness, technology innovation and tourism that can be further harnessed to create export opportunities for Australian small business.
“I will meet with government counterparts and business leaders from across the Asia‑Pacific to elevate these issues, and in particular, I will meet Vietnamese ministers to discuss progress on skills initiatives, including the growing opportunities for Australian vocational education and training providers in Vietnam.”
Minister Cash will also speak at the Grow Asian Forum. Australia is a founding donor of Grow Asia, along with Canada, and contributed close to $8 million over three years to increase the scale and impact of agribusiness ventures in the region.
ASEAN is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, whose member states include Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam.