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orporate real estate executives seeking a site for Asia-Pacific regional headquarters operations are taking a second look at Brisbane.
The state capital of Queensland on the East Coast of Australia, Brisbane is rapidly joining the ranks of Sydney and Melbourne as a true economic powerhouse in the Land Down Under. Consider these recent gains for the metro area of 1.6 million people:
- Oracle, Red Hat and Sun Microsystems all announced major new investments in Queensland this year, further bolstering Brisbane’s reputation as a magnet for software development and multimedia companies.
- Virgin Airlines moved its Australia headquarters, maintenance base, call center and operations center to Brisbane, bringing 750 new jobs to the area known as the Australia TradeCoast. Virgin further indicated that it will invest AUS$40 million a year for each of the next five years in Brisbane.
- On April 26 of this year, Virgin Blue Airlines took delivery of the first Boeing Next-Generation 737 jetliner for Australian domestic use. The deal is just one byproduct of Brisbane landing Boeing’s Asia-Pacific headquarters, formerly based in Sydney. Since first announcing the move in late 1997, Boeing has brought nearly 400 software workers employed in communications to Brisbane.
- On Jan. 31, the Australian-based airline Qantas announced that it would locate its new heavy maintenance facility worth more than AUS$60 million at the Brisbane Airport. The city beat out Melbourne and Auckland to land the maintenance base for Qantas’ 36 Boeing 767’s.
Brisbane Fact Box | |
| Population: | 1.6 million people (metro area). |
| Location: | In Southeast Queensland at Latitude 27 South, roughly the same distance from the equator as Miami, Fla. |
| Port of Brisbane: | The third largest seaport in Australia, the Port of Brisbane is closer to the Asia-Pacific Rim than any other major Australian capital city port. The port handles 50 percent of all Australian beef and cotton exports and 30 percent of all East Coast automotive imports. |
| Brisbane Airport: | The largest capital city airport in Australia, the Brisbane Airport covers 2,700 hectares and is three times larger than the country’s busiest airport, Sydney. The Brisbane Airport experienced growth of cargo volume of 8.2 percent from 1996 to 1998. Cargo growth over the next five years is forecast upwards of 5 percent. The airport services 27 international airlines offering direct connections to 27 international and 30 domestic destinations. |
| Cost of Living: | In a survey of 146 cities worldwide, Brisbane ranked 126th in cost of living, making it more affordable than all but 20 other cities. Its cost of living is less than half that of the world’s most expensive cities, and its quality of life places it in the top 30 cities in the world. |
| Work Force: | Brisbane produces two-thirds of all computer Ph.D.’s in Australia. Three major universities and the Institute of Molecular Bio-Science regularly produce the best workers in Australia in the fields of bio-technology and genomics. |
| Major Employers: | Boeing, Virgin Airlines, Qantas, IBM, Oracle, Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, Nokia, Sun Microsystems, DHL Global Worldwide, Red Hat, Cellnet and Alphapharm. |
“Australia TradeCoast is already home to many major industries and logistics operators, with around 7,600 businesses located in the area, and is achieving some of the highest industrial growth rates in Australia,” says Bronwynne Bandiera, marketing manager of the Australia TradeCoast. “To date, more than AUS$1 billion has been invested in the region for business expansion and infrastructure development, and more than 290 hectares of industrial land has been taken up by new and expanding businesses since the initiative was launched in 1999.”
The Australia TradeCoast is an alliance of the Queensland Government’s Department of State Development, the Office of Economic Development for the City of Brisbane, the Port of Brisbane Corp. and the Brisbane Airport Corp. The goal of the alliance is to develop a global investment and trade precinct encompassing Brisbane’s international airport and nearby seaport.
The approach is paying dividends. In addition to the projects listed above, Brisbane this year attracted significant investments from dry-food manufacturer Kerry Ingredients and international freight forwarders DHL Global Worldwide. In each case, the airport and seaport were pivotal factors.
“At Brisbane Airport we enjoy 24-hour, curfew-free airport access, proximity to major arterial roads and the central business district, as well as accessibility to the Asia-Pacific region,” says John Pearson, DHL regional director for Oceania. “Due to the success of the relocation and ongoing success of the customer service center in 1996, we decided in 1999 to locate our Oceania Shared Services, covering finance, customs and tele-sales, to Brisbane, increasing staff from 175 to 400.”
For DHL, which enjoys 40 percent market share of the air express industry worldwide, the move is a strategic one designed to strengthen the company’s position in the Asia-Pacific region. “These moves are part of DHL’s long-term strategy to make the Australia TradeCoast site the overnight pipeline to and from the rest of the world,” says Pearson.
Qantas CEO Geoff Dixon says his company conducted a comprehensive site search before choosing Brisbane. He cited ample room for expansion at Brisbane Airport and the assistance offered by the Australia TradeCoast as key factors in relocating the oldest airline in the English-speaking world to Brisbane.
Australia TradeCoast Chairman Elizabeth Nosworthy says that companies needing to move goods to market quickly are finding several built-in advantages in relocating to Brisbane. “Queensland is Australia’s lowest-cost location for doing business,” she says. “From taxation to infrastructure and labor costs, Queensland offers across-the-board competitive strengths when compared to other Australia states and Asia-Pacific countries. Brisbane also offers lower warehousing and distribution costs than other Australian cities. And with increasing congestion in Sydney and Melbourne ports and airports, Brisbane is becoming an attractive logistics hub for southbound cargo to be transported via road or rail along Australia’s eastern seaboard.”
