This was an increase of five percent from the previous year, with iron ore showing a massive 70 percent growth, accounting for more than half of the state’s total merchandise exports. Other exports of gas, crude petroleum, precious metal ores and nickel ores also showed very strong growth.

South Australia’s exports also grew over 21 percent, primarily driven by wheat. The ACT and NSW showed some growth but in numbers far smaller than WA and SA while Queensland’s export numbers dropped due to last year’s extreme weather including floods and Cyclone Yasi.

New South Wales remained the nation’s largest importer, with $104 billion worth of goods and services entering the state.

The value of Australian exports also grew 17.3 percent in the financial year 2010/11 with price being the main driver as volumes remained steady.

Full analyses and tables from the annual publication Australia’s Trade by State and Territory 2010-11 are available without charge on the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website.

The IT business, based on the Central Coast, provides businesses and individuals with a simple web interface, enabling them to send mail via 30 international locations.

Managing Director Peter Harris said the grant will help them grow their hybrid mail activities overseas. “We are keen to increase awareness of our services in the USA and UK marketplace and this support is going to assist us in meeting this goal.”

The Global Growth program has not only given QiQ Communications financial support, but NSW Trade and Investment Export Advisor for the Central Coast, Sharon Foster has provided guidance through strategic planning and market selection.

“The Global Growth program is ideal for companies that are innovative and have proven export potential, like QiQ Communications,” said Ms Foster.

QiQ Communications also offers businesses an API which enables them to automate their letter generation. It comprises Docsaway, a PDF-based solution to send printed mail and L-Mail, a HTML-based solution that helps turn an email into a letter.

Executive director of International Markets, Kylie Hargreaves highlighted the importance of the trade exhibition in developing export opportunities in the growing Middle East market. “Qatar itself is a growing market with the government planning to invest almost US$100 billion over the next 12 years in infrastructure expansion projects including rail, air and road links,” she explained. “Project Qatar is the ideal opportunity for the companies to promote themselves in the Middle East—it is one of the region’s leading annual exhibitions covering all construction sectors, from architecture and engineering to manufacturing and interior designing,” she said.

The NSW Department of Trade and Investment assisted the companies to exhibit, network and take part in business matching. “Our support for the NSW companies at Project Qatar is part of our program to help companies win business in international markets, earn export dollars and employ more people back home,” Hargreaves said.

The 12 NSW companies involved in Project Qatar were ADIS Automatic Doors, Austral Bricks, Hycast, Irrigation & Water Technologies, Jayline, LAF Group, Nupress, Oldfields Advance Scaffolding, Sekisui Foam International, Starena Australia, Stormtech and Worley Parsons.

Chief technical officer of Irrigation & Water Technologies at Rouse Hill David Hinton says the exhibition fostered opportunities to reach new potential clients. As a result of participating in Project Qatar, we have appointed an agent for the Middle East and our system has been approved in Abu Dhabi by the municipal government,” he said. “We also have a lot of inquiries to follow up—from small to very sizeable projects.”

“As many of the world’s economies continue to struggle for economic stability, exporters have helped guarantee Australia’s continued growth,” he said. “It is vital, then, that the Government acknowledges their contribution to our economic prosperity.”

The Export Awards are held at state and then federal level. Local winners become national finalists who compete with their peers on the strength of their exporting, marketing and financial strategies to take out the top accolades at national level.

The New South Wales Export Awards launch today.

Applications are now open in each state and territory. Awards will be announced in September and October, culminating in a national awards ceremony in early December. For more information or to apply, visit the website.

Last year, the 12 national winners generated more than $3.5 billion in export earnings.

Watch this short video to find out why you should enter, what it could do for your business and why it’s important to recognise exporters:

Entries open 1 May 2011. For more information, check out the awards website.

“With yields up and cotton prices going from strength to strength it’s great news for the state’s cotton farmers,” said Myles Parker, manager of industry development broadacre cropping for Industry and Investment NSW. “Off the back of strong cotton prices, it is tipped the crop will net about $2.3 billion for Australia’s cotton industry.”

Despite the recent natural disasters in QLD, the northern state is expected to produce 1.79 million bales. NSW will lead the harvest at 2.27 million bales, with farmers overcoming a plague of Spur Throated Locusts and heavy rains.

The harvest has already started in QLD and Northern NSW and will move south as the season progresses. Cotton Australia chief executive Adam Kay said the industry was still looking for harvesters.  “With such a massive crop predicted, we are still looking to recruit enough workers to harvest and gin our cotton.”

Up to 98 percent of Australian cotton is sold for export. The biggest markets for Australian cotton are China, Indonesia, Thailand, South Korea and Japan, while the industry also exports cottonseed to the USA, Japan, Saudi Arabia and Korea.

“We need to do better than play catch up [with other states], we need to be number one in terms of trade,” he told his newly sworn-in cabinet on Sunday. O’Farrell has already indicated he will take charge of trade delegations to both India and China within the first six months of his leadership.

Stoner announced he had delegated his roads portfolio in order to focus on attracting foreign investment for NSW. “We don’t intend to shy away from looking outward to do better in terms of opportunities for business and the economy for NSW.”

Stoner has previously said he will look to desert countries in the Middle East and Africa to find markets for Australian farm produce.

The new deputy premier said overseas travel was a necessary part of pursuing new trade links. “That was a pre-election commitment.”

The Australian developed Arondight oar was launched at the Championships held from 31 October to 7 November at Lake Karapiro in the North Island.

The Arondight technology collects data that shows exactly how the rower is performing on each stroke and which can be used to benchmark performance and measure improvement.

The oar, named after Knight of the Round Table Sir Lancelot’s sword, is the result of a joint venture between Brookvale company Talon Technology and Croker Oars of Taree with testing support from the Australian Institute of Sport and funding from the New South Wales Government.

The Australian Institute of Sport plans to use the Arondight oars to analyse the performance of its elite rowing development squad during competition and practice.

The system, which runs on a rechargeable eight hour lithium battery, can be fitted to any Croker oar and easily moved from boat to boat. It enables comparison of several rowers across 54 measurement categories.

Talon Technology, which specialises in carbon fibre design and manufacture, developed the data gathering technology.

Croker Oars exports to markets including Japan, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Germany, the United States, Canada, Thailand, South Africa, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Norway.

Her main duty was to launch NSW Week, hosted by the Australian Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo as well as  “reaffirm NSW’s strong relationship with China and the importance of furthering our trade, social and cultural links,” she noted.

Last year, the NSW Government opened business offices in Shanghai and Guangzhou, which Keneally said would stand us in good stead with China. “Our trade offices and promoting the state through NSW Week will firmly place NSW as a destination for international investment, tourism and education and as a source of world class
products and services.”

China is NSW’s largest trading partner with bilateral merchandise trade worth approximately $20.4 billion in 2008/09 and growth of more than 135 percent in the past five years. The province of Guangdong is NSW’s sister region, and NSW has Australia’s largest Chinese community, a population of about 290,000.