Trade Shows » Country » Australia » Sydney

Business Overview
Australia is a developed nation with stable politics where business, culture and education are encouraged. In addition are the vast agricultural and natural resources including relatively cheap energy. Sydney is the major player in the economy of this flourishing nation, accounting for over 25% of Australia's total economic activity. Its a modern city with services, manufacturing and mining together with finance, property and retail forming a strong economic mix.

The city is home to highly skilled workforce drawn literally from every part of the globe with financial and business services engrossing the major chunk of the city's workforce. Sydney is the premier financial center of the country with 65% of Australia's finance industry located here, including banks (domestic & foreign), financial services, insurance, funds management and stockbroking firms. The most dominant occupiers are the Reserve Bank, the Australian Stock Exchange and the Sydney Futures Exchange.

Another important commercial aspect of Sydney is its tremendous array of business venues. It is one of the world’s most exciting destinations for meetings, conventions and exhibitions. Various venues including Sydney Convention & Exhibition Center and Sydney Showground running under The Sydney Convention and Visitors Bureau (SCVB) offer unmatched business event organizing facilities. Moreover, hosting a convention in this world’s best city won’t cost the earth offering better value for money than many other international cities such as New York, Paris and Hong Kong.

Further being the most robust and highest value generator in Australia, the city continue to attract international and domestic investment providing a strong base for multinationals with Asian-Pacific headquarters here. The 60% of nation's top 100 companies are headquarters in Sydney while some of the known international companies includes American Express, AMP, BT, Coca-Cola, HJ Heinz, IBM, Microsoft, Mastercard and Vodaphone.

Major Business Centers
Sydney Convention and Exhibition Center:
Located in Sydney's Darling Harbor near the Central Business District, the venue enjoys a unique harbor-side setting adjacent to the heart of downtown making it well connected to rest of the city.

The building perhaps is one of the world's most comprehensive meetings and exhibition complexes hosting multitude of congresses and shows - large or small, international or national and low tech or high tech.

The Convention Center is contemporarily on three levels with 20 superbly designed and equipped meeting or function rooms, an auditorium with capacity of 3,500, a boardroom, banquet hall seating 2500 and much more. On the other hand, the Exhibition Center contains five single-level exhibition halls, each of 5,000 m2 (53,820 ft) of area.

Australian Securities Exchange (ASX):
The ASX group was created through the merger of Australian Stock Exchange and Sydney Futures Exchange and now operates under the brand of Australian Securities Exchange.

ASX is one of the world’s top 10 listed exchange groups that spans the markets for corporate control, capital formation and price discovery. It functions as an operator, supervisor, central counterpart clearer and payment system facilitator.

Sydney Showground:
Often denoted as a ‘Dream Venue’ Sydney Showground is the perfect place to host any event from conferences to functions, exhibitions to product launches, film shoots to sporting matches or outdoor concerts to trade fairs.

Located close to the geographic center of Greater Sydney, the showground is home to over 20 outstanding venues set on 30 hectares.

Major Commercial Areas
Sydney Central Business District (CBD):
The Sydney’s Core, CBD is the largest office market in Australia offering 4.6 million m2 of office space. The commercial space is significantly more affordable than in Tokyo, Hong Kong and Beijing therefore, making it one of the most significant commercial domain in South East Asia. Most of the demand here comes from the finance, legal and services business sectors.

Possessing head offices of the Reserve Bank of Australia, Westpac Banking Corporation and Australian Stock Exchange, CBD is not only Sydney’s but Australia’s financial strength and commercial strength.

The main business areas of the region are Pitt, George Street, North of Martin Place and many more. The main business precinct of CBD however are divided into four blocks namely, The Core, Western Corridor, Midtown and the Southern precinct.

Chatswood:
Another major commercial and retail hub of the North Shore district, Chatswood is located about 10 km north of downtown Sydney. Developed since 1980s as a low cost alternative to the CBD in close proximity to a highly skilled workforce, the region now is over 300 000 m2 of modern office space.

Specifically recognized as a ‘market’, Chatswood has two major shopping centers along with several high rise office and apartment towers. The retail dominated section of the area lies mainly to the east of the train line, whereas the majority of high rise office buildings lie to the west.

Chatswood also owns the Australian headquarters of Vodafone and offices of companies such as Nortel Networks, Optus, Smiths Snackfoods, IBM and NEC.

Major Manufacturing Zones
South Sydney Industrial Area:
Located to the South of CBD, South Industrial Area encompasses suburbs of Alexandria, Zetland, Waterloo, Rosebery, Mascot and Botany. It’s a premier industrial precinct of Sydney due to its proximity to Airport and shipping Port. Due to this the Freight forwarders, import/export companies, transport/storage, manufacturers, wholesalers and service related firms are the major occupiers of the area.

This 50 years old Industrial area has developed progressively leading to high development and occupancy costs. The opening of the new Southern Railways has further supported the redevelopment of area.

Location: South of CBD

Manufacturing: Freight, Transport & Import/Export Services

Western Sydney Industrial Area:
Major industrial zones are located in Western Sydney, some of which are up to 40 km away from CBD and Port Botany.

The outer west part includes Huntingwood, Arndell Park and Wetherill Park industrial provinces where cheap land and good infrastructure has led to the rapid development over past 15 years. The Manufacturers, food processors and transport companies are the major occupiers of these areas.

The SouthWestern suburbs on the other hand possess areas like Ingleburn, Smeaton Grange and Moorebank. These areas too have developed as low cost alternatives for general industries supported by abundant workforce.

In addition to these suburbs, the Western Sydney Industrial Area also contains a robust industrial market in the inner suburbs such as Silverwater, Rydalmere and Chullora.

Location: Western Sydney

Manufacturing: Food, Transport Services & Other Consumer Goods