The Australian Government is investing $85.9 million to help Australian agribusinesses expand and diversify their export markets through the Agri-Business Expansion Initiative (ABEI).
Announced on 23 December 2020, ABEI is part of a long-term strategy and commitment by the government to help achieve sustainable growth and resilience in our agribusiness exports.
ABEI is jointly delivered by the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment and Austrade, in close collaboration with industry.
The department is delivering on four key elements of ABEI, including grants for market expansion, boosted in-country engagement activities, accelerated work on technical market access and greater collection and delivery of market intelligence to exporters. A fifth element is being delivered by Austrade and involves scaling-up their business support services to assist over 2,000 agri-food exporters each year.
- The Agricultural Trade and Market Access Cooperation (ATMAC) grants program has been expanded to enable the government to develop strategic partnerships with trade-disrupted industries to support trade expansion and diversification.
- Industry associations, including peak bodies and Rural Research and Development Corporations are eligible to apply for ATMAC grants. Proposals are required to demonstrate broad support across the relevant industry stakeholders and include a co-contribution, financial and/or in-kind. The nature of the arrangements will vary depending on the sector, export markets and diversification activities being targeted.
- Eligible activities for ATMAC funding include investments that support trade expansion, international marketing and promotion plans, research and development, training and education, information exchange, feasibility studies, competitor analyses or sector or market analyses, export strategy development, targeted relationship development, capital works that support improved market diversification, and influencing the evolution or adoption of international standards and protocols.
- For detail on the ATMAC grants program please contact atmac@agriculture.gov.au and refer to the ATMAC website.
- ABEI has enabled the deployment of three short-term Agriculture Counsellors to rapidly build targeted relationships and ensure a sharp focus on actions necessary to grow agricultural exports. New ‘surge’ Counsellors deployed to the United States, Saudi Arabia and the Republic of Korea complement our existing network of 22 Overseas Agriculture Counsellors.
- These short-term Agriculture Counsellors enable technical market access wins by managing government and industry relationships, reporting market intelligence, and navigating sensitivities around market access requests. The Counsellors complement the technical analysis and negotiations undertaken by Canberra-based scientists and policy negotiators.
- For more information on the department’s network of Overseas Agriculture Counsellors visit the Our Agriculture Counsellors website.
- ABEI is enabling acceleration of the negotiation of technical agreements by boosting our scientific and technical capacity. This helps to progress market access priorities and reduces the time required to negotiate new and improved access for Australian producers.
- The negotiation of technical access conditions to address food safety, animal health and biosecurity protocols is a pre-requisite for international trade. This will ensure that Australian agricultural producers have favourable access to overseas markets.
- The department is mobilising Australia’s scientific expertise to undertake technical cooperation activities with our trading partners, including capacity-building and strengthened regulatory assurance. These activities help to overcome technical constraints that currently impede mutually beneficial two-way trade.
- ABEI is boosting the department’s capacity to give exporters the information they need to grow their exports.
- Access to timely in-market intelligence is essential to support export growth, particularly in new markets where Australian businesses do not have existing relationships.
- Automated collection, processing and analysis of market information is enabling us to create more informative intelligence products in shorter timeframes. The following infographics detail agriculture, fisheries and forestry trade highlights.
Agricultural, fisheries and forestry trade highlights
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The department is also collaborating with Austrade to disseminate market intelligence on the Austrade Insights platform. Recent articles include: