The Federal Government has released its long awaited Asian Century White Paper, detailing a roadmap for how the country can flourish in the Asian century.

 

The White Paper outlines the Government’s ambitious goal to see Australia enter the world’s top 10 economies through further aligning the educational and corporate system to the growing Asian region.

 

“In this century, the region in which we live will become home to most of the world’s middle class and will be the world’s largest producer of goods and services, and the largest consumer of them,” Prime Minister Julia Gillard said.

 

Ms Gillard said Australia is uniquely positioned to cater to the world’s largest growing middle class, with food exports and education standing to grow significantly in the coming decades.

 

 The White Paper sets out a number of targets for our country over the next 13 years to 2025 to ensure Australia can fulfil its ambitions and compete effectively within Asia, including:

  • By 2025, Australia’s GDP per person will be in the world’s top 10, up from 13th in 2011, requiring a lift in our productivity
  • This will mean Australia’s average real national income will be about
    $73,000 per person in 2025 compared with about $62,000 in 2012.
  • By 2025, our school system will be in the top five in the world, and 10 of our universities in the world’s top 100.
  • Globally we will be ranked in the top 5 countries for ease of doing business and our innovation system will be in the world’s top 10.
  • Studies of Asia will be a core part of the Australian school curriculum.
  • All students will have continuous access to a priority Asian language—Chinese (Mandarin), Hindi, Indonesian and Japanese.
  • Our leaders will be more Asia literate, with one-third of board members of Australia’s top 200 publicly listed companies and Commonwealth bodies having deep experience in and knowledge of Asia
  •  Our economy will be deeply integrated; our trade links with Asia will be at least one-third of GDP, up from one‑quarter today.
  • Our diplomatic network will have a larger footprint across Asia supporting stronger, deeper and broader links with Asian nations.