Taking it Yuan step at a time – do we need an FTA with China? By Tim Harcourt* The Prime Minister’s visit to China is of immense importance to her personal standing foreign policy and to the future of Australia’s economic relationship with the Middle Kingdom. China’s relationship with Australia as export destination, import source, […]

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Uruguay – the plucky country  by Tim Harcourt*  Reporting from Montevideo, Uruguay Uruguay is the classic small player who `punches above it weight’. It only has 3.3 million people and is dwarfed by its larger neighbors Brazil and Argentina. But economically it historically was a wealthy country. According to Uruguay´s Deputy Economy Minister, Luis Porto in […]

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The Department of Youth: Can Colombia rebuild its social capital? By Tim Harcourt* Reporting from Bogota, Colombia The Australian state of South Australia recently went through a brand exercise to help sell the state and its capital city Adelaide to the world in terms of trade, investment, education and tourism. There’s no doubt the Adelaide […]

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  The Invisible Hand of God: Returning to Argentina By Tim Harcourt* Reporting from Buenos Aires, Argentina In order to measure the standard of living across international borders, The Economist magazine invented the ’Big Mac Index’ to see what its cost to buy a ‘Big Mac’ hamburger in McDonald restaurants in each country in the […]

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By Tim Harcourt* Reporting from Mexico City and Monterrey, Mexico One thing I didn’t expect to hear on my visit to Mexico is a lot about Brazil. Mexico sees Brazil, as the other large economy in Latin America as a bit of a rival fighting for its place in the sun. This has intensified in […]

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Business Cycles – the economics of Lance Armstrong By Tim Harcourt* So who’s the dope now? Lance Armstrong, the man who once was a seven time winner of the Tour de France, spoke to US talk show supremo, Oprah in a no holds barred tell all confessional. So why did he do it? Surely the […]

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The Dollar dazzles but Aussie battlers still build new export markets   By Tim Harcourt* Tully, in North Queensland, is a great place for a holiday, especially if you like it wet. But it seems that if the price is right, and they can afford it, don’t most Australians prefer to holiday in Thailand or […]

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Hello to the age of Asia   An Interview with Frances Adamson, Australia’s Ambassador to China.   TIM HARCOURT:       Was growing up in South Australian important to you in terms of opportunity?   FRANCES ADAMSON: Growing up in South Australia in the 1960s and 1970s, I certainly had a belief that anything was possible, and […]

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When you are punting on this year’s Melbourne Cup, have a bit of sympathy for Australian export businesses who have to make their big bets on international markets in the Asian region. Like a good punter Australian exporters have to look at the horse, the jockey, the state of the track, and of course, the […]

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The Power of Proximity – Australia’s next wave of global engagement in the Asian Century Tim Harcourt* Nearly half a century ago, Geoffrey Blainey’s The Tyranny of Distance argued that Australia’s geographic position shaped our psychological attitudes. The long distance between Australia and our colonial forebears in Europe, and also the United States, made us […]

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