From Canberra to the world: brands try to find international footholds

The territory's exporters bring in anywhere from under $100,000 per annum to upwards of $20 million, and about 95 per cent of them are services.

According to the territory's Commissioner for International Engagement Brendan Smyth, these are industries ranging from education and research to tourism and software.

Countries including the US, China, Japan and Singapore are among top export destinations, but the potential for further growth is there Mr Smyth said.

Alan Tse and Christina Delay, co-founders of Canberra non-alcoholic drinks brand Altina, struck upon that potential when they started inquiring about exporting their products in August last year.

"We both wanted to actually export when we started the business [in 2018]," Mr Tse said.

"Australia has built a brand, as a country, we've got a high trust level in our food and beverages ... the question we had was, how long was it going to take us before we were export ready?"

It was with the help of TradeStart, an ACT government and Austrade partnership, that Mr Tse and Ms Delay made their first shipment to Singapore in December 2021: 240 bottles and 240 cans.

It was a small order, but a second order of 450 bottles and 200 cans followed in January. The company also exports to New Zealand, which came about after they were approached to do so by a wholesaler.

TradeStart helps businesses to identify suitable partners in Singapore, a step which Mr Tse said stripped some of the anxiety out of the process.

The brand is looking at expanding to markets in Taiwan, the US and UK around the end of 2023, but it will be a matter of bringing on more personnel and monitoring the stability of international supply chains.

"Eventually, we'd like to think the global sales will take over our domestic sales but right now our core business is Australia," he said.

Rob Waterworth, chief executive of the Mullion Group, said the business moved into exporting upon the prompting of an interested US investor.

"We were largely a consulting firm that was developing software to support our consulting business, and then a few years ago we converted more into a software firm," Mr Waterworth said.

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The company created a product called the Full Lands Integration Product, or FLINTPro, which can be used to estimate and predict greenhouse gas emissions from the land sector.

Prior to COVID, the business had been about 80-90 per cent export based with that ratio falling to about 60 per cent with the impacts of the pandemic and the climbing demand within Australia, Mr Waterworth said.

Canberra has its perks, with access to resources and staff flowing out of the territory's universities, but a churn effect between highly competitive public and private sectors does cast a shadow, he said.

"What we've seen is that large consulting firms and accounting firms ... are actively employing people at a very high rate to do a lot of work for government, and they're offering pay that we can't offer."

"You've got to try to and get in early with people [coming] out of universities and find good people which is something we focus on for that."

Mr Smyth said an export strategy for the territory was on its way, due in the second half of the year.

"We're just doing the numbers now to get a handle on what exporting looks like post-COVID, and how quickly we can get back to the pre-COVID levels and then grow beyond that."

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