Business
and Economy of the Queens land: Queensland's
economy has enjoyed a boom in the tourism and mining
industries over the last twenty years. A sizeable
influx of interstate and overseas migrants, large
amounts of federal government investment, increased
mining of vast mineral deposits and an ever expanding
aerospace sector ensure that the state will remain
Australia's fastest growing economy in the foreseeable
future.
Between 1992 and 2002, the growth in the Gross State
Product of Queensland outperformed that of all the
other states and territories. In that period Queensland's
GSP grew 5.0% each year, while growth in Australia's
GDP rose on average 3.9% each year. Queensland's contribution
to the Australian GDP also increased (by 10.4%) in
that period, one of only three states to do so.
In 2003 Brisbane city had the lowest cost of living
of all Australia's capital cities. As of late 2005
Brisbane is the third most expensive capital for housing
after Sydney and Canberra and just ahead of Melbourne
by $15,000.
Primary industries include: bananas, pineapples, peanuts,
a wide variety of other tropical and temperate fruit
and vegetables, grain crops, wineries, cattle rising,
cotton, sugar cane, wool and a mining industry including
bauxite, coal and copper. Secondary industries are
mostly further processing of the above-mentioned primary
produce: bauxite from Weep is converted to alumina
at Gladstone. There are also copper refining and the
refining of sugar cane to sugar. |