The surplus rose by $366 million in December with export value rising by 2.3 per cent.

A strong rise in resources exports was also recorded with a large recovery in coal exports following the Queensland Floods.

Australia’s exports continue to be dominated by resources, comprising approximately 62 percent of total exports in December.

There was a drop in services exports recorded that indicated a weakness in travel and education exports.

The divergent economy remains weak with a low rate of building approvals that have continued falling 24.5 percent year on year.

Recent interest rate cuts, and further expected cuts, are expected to provide support for the divergent economy and modest growth is expected in late 2012.

Following the unexpected rise in trade surplus it is predicted to moderate throughout 2012.

Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd announced today that Venamore is expected to take up her appointment next month.

Venamore will replace Glenn White, who has been Ambassador since January 2009.

Currently Australia has a partnership with Jordan that includes trade, agriculture, investment, education, defence and cultural cooperation, including archaeological research, over 50 years.

Recent new areas of bilateral cooperation include law enforcement and customs cooperation. Bilateral merchandise trade stood at $189 million for  the year 2010 – 11.

As a strategically significant country in the Middle East, Australia has welcomed Jordan’s efforts to promote peace talks in the region.

Previously Venamore was serving as counsellor at the Australia High Commission in London.

Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd, speaking from Jakarta yesterday, said: “We hope positive developments, such as the increased participation of opposition parties in the political process, the release of around 220 political prisoners, and new labour laws that will legalise trade unions, will continue. In this context we will keep our approach to sanctions under review.”

Targeted financial sanctions are currently applied by Australia as well as travel restrictions to certain individuals. An arms embargo will remain in place.

The new sanctions not only reflect changes to government and military structures, but also administrative updates in line with Australia’s new Autonomous Sanctions Regulations.

“Australia retains the ability to add individuals to the sanctions list at any time, but members of Burma’s new Government who were not previously on Australia’s sanctions list will not be listed at this time. Former Ministers and Deputy Ministers who are no longer in politics will be removed from the list, as will tourism officials,” said Rudd.

Further developments with Australia’s sanctions will be discussed with Aung San Suu Kyi and other stakeholders, Rudd said. “There is much progress still to be made in Burma, and Australia continues to urge the release of all political prisoners, free and fair by-elections and the peaceful resolution of ethnic conflicts in Burma.”

Australia and Canada have a close relationship, sharing many values underpinned by a common Commonwealth heritage. The two countries work closely together at an international level at the UN and in the G20.

While peak industry bodies have recently launched reviews into increasing the economic links between the two countries, there is currently strong growth in bilateral trade and investment flows between Canada and Australia.

People-to-people links are a strong feature of the relationship between the two nations, including 200 agreements between Australian and Canadian universities, with Canada being Australia’s largest research partner.

Hand is a career DFAT officer and is currently Australia’s Ambassador for Climate Change.

The 1.4 billion dollar surplus, released last week in the monthly International Trade in Goods and Services series by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, was similar to the surplus recorded in October of last year, with exports up 0.2 percent and imports up 0.4 percent.

Non-monetary gold was largely responsible for the rise in exports, combined with lower exports of minerals and ores, which fell four percent in November.

On the rise was the export of manufactured goods, up four percent, alongside transport equipment, rural exports and shipments of cereal grains and preparations.

The surplus was slightly below last month’s figures, with exports down 0.2 percent and imports up 2 percent. It remains a strong result however, and the 18th consecutive monthly trade surplus, barring a small deficit in February due to the Queensland floods, in a record unseen since 1972-73.

Australia’s Asian trading partners kept up the demand for our exports in October, with a three percent increase in exports to North Asia, including a nine percent increase in exports to Japan, and Chinese demand continuing to grow.

Service and rural agricultural exports also rose during October, while exports of manufactured goods fell over the month.

Volumes of iron ore shipments were up, offsetting lower prices, with export values remaining stable.

The lower trade surplus was affected by fluctuations in the gold processing trade.

According to Australian entrepreneur and facilitator David Thomas, China is leading the way into the future by financially delinking themselves from troubled developed economies.

“It’s going to be imperative for the Chinese to take over the technological leadership, they’re already doing that,” Thomas said.

The accumulating debt of developed countries is resulting in China becoming the leader of foreign investment.

“What they do have which the west doesn’t have is the abundance of land, people and capital. The western world doesn’t have capital now, in fact has a lot of debt,” Thomas said.

According to Thomas this change in global leadership is a step in the right direction for Australia in continuing to survive the global financial crisis.

“We are China’s number one source of outbound investment with 36 billion dollars or so committed from China to Australia,” Thomas said.

“The biggest opportunity right now, in this part of world, down in Australia, is the opportunity to attract and source and investment from China.”

Chinese investment into Australia will be discussed at the 2012 Asian Financial Forum.

Watch the video interview with David Thomas, courtesy of HKTDC here.

The rise contributed to this year’s record trade surplus of $20.9 billion and was significantly higher than the growth in imports of goods and services, also up more than seven percent. According to a Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) publication, Composition of Trade 2010-11, this growth in exports was largely led by the mineral sector which recorded a growth of more than 48 percent. A 21.7 increase in fuel exports also contributed to the record year.

According to the report, China came out as Australia’s strongest two-way trade partner, followed by Japan and the United States. The report also shows that Australia’s top three exports were iron ore and concentrates, coal and education-related travel services.

The release of this document marks a new era in DFAT reporting, with an accompanying range of tables allowing users easy access to trade time series data. More information and the accompanying tables can be found on the DFAT website.

Over 100 Victorian companies will be taking part in the mission to India, making it Australia’s largest ever trade mission to the rising nation and Australia’s fastest growing export market, growing at an average rate of 25 percent each year since 2005.

“The size and scope of this Super Trade Mission clearly demonstrates our commitment to grow Victoria’s already strong relationship with India,” Mr Baillieu said.

“Victorian businesses have strong capabilities in many sectors that India needs to support its future growth – including automotive, aviation, cleantech, education, food and beverage, ICT, life sciences, tourism and sustainable urban design.”

The mission to India aims to boost Victoria’s economy with more jobs and export opportunities. “It will build on the successful trade mission to India involving 60 companies that took place in April this year,” Baillieu said, “led by the Minister for Innovation, Services and Small Business, Louise Asher – which is anticipated to generate more than $63 million in new exports, $19 million in capital investment and over 570 jobs in Victoria over the next 18 months.

“Trade missions provide Victorian companies with great opportunities to connect with their overseas counterparts and grow new markets for our high-quality goods and services.”

Commencing in Delhi on the 21st February 2012, the mission will also focus on other key centres in India including Bangalore, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai and Pune. Victorian organisations interested in joining the Super Trade Mission to India can visit www.trade.vic.gov.au for more information.

While Jim had already gained recognition and widespread respect for his previous work as an economist and currency analyst, he acknowledges that his career has now been shaped in large part by this simple term. While many eyebrows were raised at the time by some of his more dramatic predictions, notably the one that China would overtake the US to become the largest economy in the world within 30 years, the BRIC concept is now almost a household term, widely recognised within the media, academia, business circles and certainly by the investment community.  At the end of 2009, Jim’s BRIC research was widely acclaimed as the “Call of the Decade”.

With the benefit of 10 years since he first invented the BRIC acronym, it is worth pausing to reflect on how much the world has changed since 2001. As Jim wrote this week in an article in the UK Telegraph in which he reflects on the progress of the BRICs over the last decade:

“All four of the BRIC countries have exceeded the expectations I had of them back in 2001. Looking back, those earliest predictions, shocking to some at the time, now seem rather conservative.

The aggregate GDP of the BRIC countries has close to quadrupled since 2001, from around $3 trillion to between $11 – $12 trillion.

The world economy has doubled in size since 2001, and a third of that growth has come from the BRICs. Their combined GDP increase was more than twice that of the United States and it was equivalent to the creation of another new Japan plus one Germany, or five United Kingdoms, in the space of a single decade.

Some observers say the effect of the BRICs on the world economy has been exaggerated because their growth was primarily driven by exports to the developed markets, as well as the rise in commodity prices.

Exports certainly played a major role for China, but since the 2008 credit crisis and the consequent fall in demand in the US and elsewhere, that is no longer the case.

For India, domestic demand has been the driver throughout the last decade, and increasingly it is the domestic consumer as well as an increase in infrastructure spending that is fuelling growth in the BRIC economies.

The credit-fuelled growth in US demand certainly played its part in their ascent, but even since 2008, and despite the ongoing US struggles, the BRIC economies have continued to power ahead.

However you choose to interpret the data, the importance of the BRICs in global economic growth is beyond dispute. Personal consumption in the BRIC countries has skyrocketed. In China, between 2001 and 2010, domestic spending increased by $1.5 trillion, or roughly the size of the UK economy.

The increase in the other three was about the same, perhaps slightly more. BRICs now account for probably close to 20 percent of world trade compared with less than 10 percent in 2001.”

Whilst the BRIC idea was first dreamt up as an investment idea or theme, designed to challenge the thinking of investors and their professional advisors, even Jim has been surprised by how quickly the BRIC countries themselves have started collaborating via their annual BRIC (now “BRICS” to include South Africa), Leaders Summit which has met every year since 2009 to discuss opportunities for political, economic and even trade collaboration.

The recent BRICS Leaders Meeting in China in April 2011 laid the tracks for greater ‘intra-BRIC’ trade and investment co-operation in the years ahead.  This is vital to the global economy and should be occupying the minds of all forward thinking business leaders, investors and entrepreneurs.

‘Intra-BRIC trade’, or trade among the BRIC members, has grown at the rate of 30 percent per annum since 1999 and now accounts for 8 percent of global trade. During the last 10 years, intra-BRIC trade increased nine-fold, compared to global trade which only doubled over the same period.

In recent years, Intra-BRIC trade has been mainly characterised by Russia and Brazil supplying natural resources to satisfy the industrial and infrastructural needs of India and China. However, this is likely to change. Watch out for more investment and trade deals between the BRICs as they create their own trading bloc and invest in each other’s capabilities.

10 years later, it is time to acknowledge Jim O’Neill’s vision, foresight and thought leadership. But as he reminds me from time to time, the BRIC idea has a long way to run yet!