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Essay on Globalisation and the Australian Economy

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The Impact of Globalisation on the Australian Economy Globalisation is not new. Australia has been involved in trade, investment, financial flows, technology transfers and the migration of labour since its foundation as a colony. What has changed is the size, direction and influence of these transfers, especially since 1980. There are a number of factors that have aided this transformation. They include: •     The expansion of new markets – foreign exchange and capital markets are linked globally. They operate 24 hours a day with dealings any where in the world possible in real time. Financial deregulation and the floating of the Australian dollar since 1983 intensified the impact of globalisation on the …show more content…

The Impact of Globalisation on Australia’s Trade Australia’s trade policies, since the middle of the 1980’s, have been geared to opening domestic industries to the global market (Graph 1). A prime focus of structural reform has been to ‘subject the private sector in Australia to more competition from both domestic and international sources’ (Treasury, 1999). Australia has traditionally had high levels of protection, since the 1950’s in areas like textiles, clothing and footwear and motor vehicles. In the early eighties the effective rate of protection in the TCF industries was in excess of 200% and 57.5% for passenger motor vehicles. While some people would argue that cutting protection will reduce employment. Most industries that were heavily protected during the 1970’s and 1980’s still suffered losses of employment and were not efficient enough to compete in export markets. Graph 1: Effective Rates of Protection in Australia                          Years Source: Productivity Commission Cuts in protection have increased imports but the increased efficiency has led to a comparable rise in exports. The value of exports plus imports of goods and services has risen from 32% of GDP in 1975 to 48% of GDP in 2000 (ABS), reflecting

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