With news and pressure from various sectors, be it personal or otherwise, emigration is still foremost on many people’s minds at some stage or other and to this end, Australia seems like the best option – same climate, language, sport and similar culture (if you can call it that).
I have done this some 18 months ago, and coming from the 'electronics market' back home (Johannnesburg), I thought it would be easy to get back into what I know. Boy has it been fun. Not only is this market very different to South Africa, but a complex array of regulations and competitiveness, very much like the USA, exists. Having said this, there is a huge market out here and there are a number of areas that operate completely differently to what we are used to.
The sector is covered by a number of journals and a yearbook similar to the EBG guide. The listings are broad and cover most sectors of the market. The main difference in the Australian market is that there are extremely close ties to both the USA and Asia, the proximity to these markets making them more viable than cementing relations with a distant Europe. So competitiveness comes into play from both these arenas; all the major US companies have offices and distribution networks here in Australia, and the close Asian markets offer competitive goods at quick turnaround times.
This market and region as a whole has some substantial growth ahead of it - Australia, due to sheer size and prospects, and Asia, as an upwardly-mobile market in the global economy. Most companies here build on the export of technology and high-tech electronics, the basic manufacture and volume items being imported as complete assemblies from Asia to a great degree.
So does this market offer growth and sustainability?
Well ... yes - provided one can focus into sectors that are poorly serviced or non-existent at the time, or by marketing the product worldwide that was built economically through Asian companies. The key issue to remember is that the Australian market as a whole, is a stable economy (inflation of about 1,7%) with a relatively flat growth (averaging 2,7% per annum). The spin-off to this is that one can competitively market into the rest of the world, exploiting the fact that the products originate from Australia - a 'stable and sound' economy.
World trends over the last decade have indicated that future growth is here to stay. Australia is also one of a very small group of advanced countries that have, since 1980, increased their share of world output. The United States and most particularly, Ireland, are included in that group. In this regard, the developed countries of the OECD have, in aggregate, experienced a decline in their share of world output from 57,4% in 1980 to 52,4% in 2001, while over the same period, the developing countries of Asia (Australia is included in this group) have increased their share from 10,7% to 24% (including China) and from 7,3% to 11,9% (excluding China).
All this, together with a focused stable economy, is positive to build future growth. My reason for this letter is one of information sharing and market awareness for products' export or potential joint development. South Africa has many good ideas, products and engineers that can competitively develop products suited to this very similar environment, and perhaps the start of reciprocal trade would be welcomed.
A little about our company: Prime Electronics has been established for about 20 years (under St. Lucia Electronics until 1999); and from three branches, Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Sydney, offers a full range of electronic components and products for the backbone of the business. The spare-parts business is how it originally started out but, over time, as the market grew, the company became a major distributor of electronic components and test equipment.
Do we miss home?
'Yes and No' (ie, ja-nee). We miss the friends and family, and the restaurants, other than that we have adapted and moved onto a different platform, sometimes better, other times very different - not necessarily worse, just different.
For further information on this market or any other information, contact Paul dos Santos, Prime Electronics, paul@prime-electronics.com.au
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