Australia
A resource-led boom in Western Australia (WA) has fuelled a 15-year transformation of the state's economy that has seen it outperform national economic growth - and China has played a major role in this transformation.
Gross state product rose by more than 6per cent to A$127.8billion (HK$955 billion) by the end of last year, notes the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Western Australia (CCI) in its latest report on the state's resources sector (see chart).
'The boom in global mineral and energy markets has propelled WA's economic development. With its rich abundance of natural resources, WA has been well placed to cash in on China's surging demand for raw materials,' the CCI notes.
The explosive growth of the sector in response to the mainland's demand for raw materials was not foreseen in 2005, say analysts, when it was forecast that the value of the resources and energy sector would rise to some A$50billion by 2015.
In fact that figure was surpassed last year when the nominal value of WA's mineral and energy exports stood at A$54.1billion - more than half of Australia's total exports of minerals and energy in 2007 - and accounted for 68.6per cent of the state's total exports. And there is no sign that the growth will end any time soon, according to the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (Abare), the country's largest applied economics research centre.
