THE Chamber of Commerce and Industry WA has called on industry and government to work together to help improve the international competitiveness of Western Australian businesses to boost their chances of winning work on major projects.
THE Chamber of Commerce and Industry WA has called on industry and government to work together to help improve the international competitiveness of Western Australian businesses to boost their chances of winning work on major projects.
The CCI has released a local content strategy report outlining a number of recommendations that the state government should adopt to assist growth of local industry participation.
Chief executive James Pearson said many businesses were still doing it tough, despite an unprecedented surge in development in the resources and energy sectors.
The report says that local industry’s ability to supply goods and services to major projects has been affected by the pressures of globalisation, including the increasing size of tender packages and multinational preferred supplier tender lists.
Sections of the WA community are calling for the development of a new local content policy.
Mr Pearson said a local content policy should be centred on the principles of free enterprise, open markets and competition, as well as improving the international competitiveness of local firms.
He also made it clear that mandating local content levels would be the incorrect approach and would drive costs higher, and result in a violation of Australia’s World Trade Organisation obligations.
The CCI said the policy should look beyond the construction phase of major projects and also take into account opportunities for local industry to supply and carry out maintenance on projects during their operational life.
Some of the recommendations CCI has put forward to the WA government include:
removing barriers to open markets, allowing local industry to become internationally competitive;
updating the Australian Industry Participation Framework; and
working with project proponents to identify and select target disciplines to build WA’s knowledge base.
In relation to opening markets, the CCI said the state government could help by addressing constraints such as labour shortages, inflexible industrial relations laws, high taxes, and excessive red tape- all of which are ‘jacking up’ the cost of doing business.
The Australian Industry Participation Framework was developed more than 10 years ago and forms the basis of WA’s current local content policy.
CCI said the AIPP was too out of date to reflect market realities and should be updated immediately.
Another recommendation is for WA to become a centre of excellence in knowledge and skills in the resources and energy sector.
In doing so, the CCI has suggested that, under the AIPP, companies should advise the state government on the key skills requirements needed over the life of their projects.
This, in turn, would assist with state and industry workforce planning activities.
