Business bulletin: 7 April 2022

Last week, the Northern Territory Government released its new international engagement strategy to better harness the Territory’s competitive advantages, expand the Territory’s global reach and respond to a changed international environment.

The international engagement strategy 2022 to 2026 outlines the government’s strategic plan to be a preferred partner for business, in an intensely competitive and rapidly evolving global economy.

The strategy has been developed in consultation with industry and business leaders and will expand the Territory’s global presence, while also securing and building upon our current business and international relations.

Six high priority markets are identified through the strategy and targets are identified for growth in trade and investment.

Over the coming months the Northern Territory Government will welcome key officials form Indonesia, Japan, the United States, Philippines, United Kingdom, Vietnam and South Korea to the Territory to showcase the potential for investment and trade.

Read the international engagement strategy 2022 to 2026.

Singapore Airlines has resumed direct flights between Darwin and Singapore with an initial service 3‑times per week.

The intention is to increase this service to 5‑times a week at the end of May 2022.

The flights are timed to connect travellers seamlessly at Singapore Changi Airport with Singapore Airlines’ Asia, Europe and some North American destinations to provide a one‑stop journey between Darwin and the airlines global route network.

Singapore Airlines Group has a long-standing partnership with the Northern Territory having previously operated Singapore to Darwin flights in 1999. The airlines fully owned regional subsidiary SilkAir resumed services in 2012. At its peak, it operated 7 flights a week between the 2 cities until the route’s suspension in March 2020 due to COVID-19.

Singapore Airlines Regional Vice President South West Pacific Mr Louis Arul, said “The return of Darwin to our global network shows our confidence in the Australian market and emphasises the fact that Australia’s recovery since opening its international borders in November continues to gather pace.

“As Australia’s most northern international gateway, Darwin offers travellers the perfect launch pad to visit come of Australia’s most amazing natural experiences including Kakadu National Park, Nitmiluk Gorge and one of the greatest natural wonders of the world, Uluru.”

With Australia opening its borders to vaccinated and international visitors, Tourism NT is undertaking significant in-market activities and campaigns in the Northern Territory’s 3 largest inbound source markets of the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States.

The in-market activities and campaigns are intended to bring the Northern Territory to the front of mind for travel intenders and drive the return of high spending tourist and working holiday makers to the Territory, as well as support the promotion of air access over Singapore and into Darwin on the new route.

Australia’s leading data centre service provider NEXTDC limited has announced plans to build a new state-of-the-art data centre in Darwin.

D1 is an $80 million critical infrastructure investment and the first for the company in the Territory. D1 will be located at 2 Harvey Street in Darwin’s CBD.

Construction will begin in October 2022, creating around 200 jobs and up to 25 positions once its operation begins in mid‑2023.

D1 will house 1,500 racks and support up to 8MW IT load. In addition it will offer uninterrupted critical services to customers to support businesses, and an innovation centre providing collaborative spaces to support Territory technologies innovators, start-ups and high growth companies.

Australian owned and run, NEXTDC have been designing, building and operating Australia’s largest network of premium cloud enables data centres for 12 years and is regarded as the leading data centre operator in Australia.

NEXTDC CEO Craig Scroggie said, “We are committed to supporting the Northern Territory’s goal of becoming a key destination for digital growth extended beyond our initial D1 development.

“NEXTDC have also secured a first right of refusal over our second Darwin Site (D2) that will provide for the long-term development of a hyper scale campus designed to serve the emerging Asia South region connected to Darwin by the new international submarine cable networks.”

The Northern Territory Government will continue to work closely with NEXTDC to deliver digital capability to the Top End well into the future. As such NEXTDC, have secured rights to a second location in the Wishart Estate for the second planned future data centre (D2).

NEXTDC is also committed to using local Territory contractors wherever possible for the design construction and operations of its Darwin data centre network.

The global data centre market is expected to reach $174 billion by 2023. The Territory Economic Reconstruction Commissions final report identified data centres as key to positioning the Territory as Australia’s digital gateway to Asia and to growing a $40 billion economy by 2030.

A Northern Territory Government grant has helped a family-owned business save money and increase their efficiency.

Darwin-based hydraulic engineering company Architectural Water Solutions used a $4,000 Business Pivot Grant to buy an A1 printer-copier, which enables the business to produce A1 drawings.

Owners Des and Margaret Martin bought the equipment from Darwin-based business NTIT, which was ‘very helpful in offering expert advice’.

Margaret says the grant application process was very simple.

“The online application document is great - it allows you to save, go back and edit.

“The staff that handle any queries with regards to the grant are an absolute pleasure to deal with - very helpful indeed.”

Architectural Water Solutions, which has been operating since 2009, needs to produce drawings in A1 format for its tenders.

“As our works are very detailed, the A1 size simplifies the process a great deal. It is very difficult to provide accurate mark-ups to drawings on the smaller A3 size.

“So apart from the costs saved on printing, not having to forward drawings to others and go and collect when available, there’s a saving on time and labour.”

The Territory Government’s Business Pivot Grant Program provides funding to Territory small businesses to improve business performance and access new markets.

Grants of up to $10,000 are available on a 25:75 co-contribution basis for businesses to improve their digital capabilities.

For more information about the Business Pivot Grant Program, go to the Northern Territory Government website.

Territory small businesses and entrepreneurs are invited to attend the inaugural Belong in Business conference in Darwin.

The event, which will be held on Thursday 21 April 2022 is designed to help local businesses learn from industry experts to build new skills, expand their network and grow their business.

The Department of Industry, Tourism and Trade’s small business champions will also be at the conference and are available to discuss your business’s needs.