European Commission Directorate-General for Trade

Australia

Australia's total exports are dominated by mineral commodities (fuels and mining products) and agricultural products (respectively accounting for 57.2% and 15.3% of exports in 2009). Australia is the permanent chair of the Cairns Group which lobbies internationally for greater liberalisation of agricultural trade. Some 37% (2009) of trade between the EU and Australia is in commercial services, especially transportation and travel, but also business services, financial services and computer services.

The EU is Australia's second trading partner after China (2009), a key export market and the EU’s 17th major trade partner (2010). Trade between the two economies continues has been growing steadily; this trend was reversed in 2009 due to the global economic crisis.

Trade between the two economies had been growing steadily until 2009 when this trend was reversed due to the global economic crisis.

Trade in goods

• EU exports to Australia 2010: €26.7 bn
• EU imports from Australia 2010: €9.8 bn

Australian exports to the EU are mainly agricultural products (notably wine), but also mineral and energy commodities (non-monetary gold, coal, iron), and machinery and transport material, chemical products, wool and textiles. EU products exported to Australia comprise mostly medicaments, motor vehicles, machinery and telecommunication equipment.

Trade in services

• EU commercial services exports to Australia 2009 : €11.8 bn
• EU commercial services imports from Australia 2009: €6.2 bn

Foreign direct investment

The strong presence of EU companies in Australia is reconfirmed by the 2009 update of a 2006 survey of EU companies in Australia. This update found that there were approximately 2360 EU companies with a presence in Australia, with a total estimated turnover of about € 200 bn or just over 14% of total sales in Australia. These companies directly created approximately 500.000 jobs in Australia. The EU is the second main destination for Australian overseas investments and the EU is by far the major source of FDI inflows. The EU invested in 2009 € 2.8 billion (€ 11.6 billion in 2008).

More statistics on Australia

Agreements to facilitate trade

The EU and Australia are parties to a bilateral agreement (EU-Australia Partnership Framework of October 2008) that aims, apart from cooperation on the Doha Round of world trade talks and trade in services and investment issues, to facilitate trade in industrial products between the EU and Australia by reducing technical barriers, including assessment procedures. This covers mutual recognition of conformity assessment procedures, with the objective of reducing the costs of testing and certification of products exported to and imported from Australia. It is applies to medicinal devices, telecom terminal equipment, electrical safety, pharmaceutical GMP, machinery and pressure equipment, and motor vehicles.