Features

Government and business driving the Canberra economy

B2B Editor12 November 2015

In 2015 Canberra has a healthy population 390,000. In just over 100 years Canberra has gone from a ‘government outpost’ to Australia’s largest inland city, equally reliant on the private and public sectors to drive growth in the economy.

Historically, in the 1880’s, the land Canberra occupies was sheep paddocks. The 1828 census showed 21 non-indigenous inhabitants living in ‘Canberra’. Nearly 200 years later Canberra’s population has grown to almost 390,000.

Today, Canberra, a planned city, recently celebrates 100 years as Australian Capital. It’s the home of the federal parliament, many of Australia’s cultural institutions and more tertiary institutions per capita than any other Australian city.

These tertiary institutions are the Australian National University (ANU), University of Canberra,Australian Catholic University, University of NSW and Charles Sturt University. Impressively, the Australian National University is ranked 20th in the world.

The education sector being the largest non-government employer has 13,000 students enrolled at ‘The University of Canberra.’ The prestigious ‘Australian National University’ has enrolled 21,113 students.

Presently the employment participation rate is 70.4% in June 30th 2015 with the population grown by 389,700 people.

Unemployment rate has dropped to 5.1 per cent, However the ACT unemployment rate still ranks second lowest compared to national average of 6.2%.

According to the Bureau of Statistics in 2015 the average full-time weekly income was $1707 dollars, leading in the highest income in Australia.

B2B editor, Tim Benson, said there is a special relationship between the public and private sectors in Canberra.

“The public and private sectors have a symbiotic relationship. Earlier on, the private sector relied on the public sector to survive. These days with mass outsourcing the relationship is far more equal,” Tim said.

Tim also believes the future is bright for Canberra.

“Canberra has benefited from self government and positive and progressive governments of all persuasions. Canberra will also benefit from major local and regional infrastructure projects. Such as the Light Rail and City to Lake and a commitment from the Federal Government to fund a new Convention Centre and Light rail to Sydney,” Tim stated.

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