australia-china free trade agreement conference brian pilbeam, pr

5Let me present a hypothetical case, but one that will give you a practical illustration of thebenefits of having a world class telecommunications “services” environment.For example a specialised nickel products mill in Hebei receives an order electronically from aFrankfurt high technology company. The mill relies on just-in-time processing and places anorder with BHP Billiton.On email instruction, a ship heads to Newcastle to collect the raw materials and transport themto Tianjin, and similar components are ordered from other parts of China and the region.Satellite navigation on the ship gives the mill pinpoint accuracy as to all the raw materials’arrival time.Meanwhile the company’s design staff in its Nanjing and Guangzhou offices are able tocollaborate, sharing files via a Virtual Private Network as though they were sitting next to eachother. They send these data-rich files to the mill, specifying how to make what the customerhas ordered.Production is completed and shipped to Hamburg. Satellite navigation means the customerknows when the delivery will arrive and the mill knows when to issue the bill.Upon receipt of the product, the customer transfers payment electronically from its HSBC bankaccount, using a secure network.That shows you the enormous advantage to be gained by creating the infrastructure linkbetween the productive economy and its global markets. It’s the generational differencebetween the industrial era and the new economy that uses communications and technology forits leverage.Much of the infrastructure required to provide such services exists in China today. However,the telecommunication services layer required to integrate disparate systems and provide theend-to-end solution I just described does not yet exist.Australia has the benefit of some years’ experience with a deregulated telecommunicationsmarket, which has injected major benefit into the Australian economy.