Regions Australia

Melbourne, Australia

Melbourne has a highly diversified economy with particular strengths in finance, manufacturing, research, IT, education, logistics, transportation and tourism. Melbourne is headquarters for many of Australia’s largest corporations, including five of the ten largest in the country (based on revenue), and four of the largest six in the country (based on market capitalisation) (ANZ, BHP Billiton (the world’s largest mining company), the National Australia Bank and Telstra); as well as such representative bodies and think-tanks as the Business Council of Australia and the Australian Council of Trade Unions. The city is home to Australia’s largest Melbourne 1and busiest seaport which handles more than $75 billion in trade every year and 39% of the nation’s container trade. Melbourne Airport provides an entry point for national and international visitors, and is Australia’s second busiest airport. Melbourne is also an important financial centre. Two of the big four banks, NAB and ANZ, are headquartered in Melbourne. The city has carved out a niche as Australia’s leading centre for superannuation (pension) funds, with 40% of the total, and 65% of industry super-funds including the $40 billion-dollar Federal Government Future Fund. The city was rated 41st within the top 50 financial cities as surveyed by the MasterCard Worldwide Centers of Commerce Index, second only to Sydney (12th) in Australia. Melbourne is Australia’s second-largest industrial centre. It is the Australian base for a number of significant manufacturers including Boeing, truck-makers Kenworth and Iveco, Cadbury as well as Bombardier Transportation and Jayco, among many others. It is also home to a very wide variety of other manufacturers, ranging from petrochemicals and pharmaceuticals to fashion garments, paper manufacturing and food processing. The city also boasts a research and development hub for Ford Australia, as well as a global design studio and technical centre for General Motors and Toyota respectively.

Sydney, Australia

As the financial, manufacturing and economic hub of Australia, Sydney has grown to become a wealthy and prosperous city and its residents enjoy the world’s second highest earnings when measured using domestic purchasing power, among world cities. The largest economic sectors in Sydney, as measured by the number of people employed, include property and business services, retail, manufacturing, and health and community services. Sydney provides approximately 25 percent of the country’s total GDP. The Australian Securities Exchange and the Reserve Bank of Australia are located in Sydney, as are the headquarters of 90 banks and more than half of Australia’s top companies, and the regional headquarters for around 500 multinational corporations. Of the ten largest corporations in Australia by revenue, four have headquarters in Sydney: Caltex Australia, the Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, and Woolworths. Of the 54 authorised deposit-taking banks in Australia, 44 are based in Sydney including nine of the 11 foreign subsidiary banks in Australia and all of the 29 local branches of foreign banks. Major authorised foreign banks in Sydney include Citigroup, UBS Australia, Mizuho Corporate Bank, HSBC Bank Australia and Deutsche Bank.