[gary]

Originally Posted by astroron

Thanks Gary.
I would hazard a guess that the biggest percentage of the 7% would be small busyness's such as your self.

Hi Ron,

Your are welcome.

I would have to dig deeper to find what percentage of total exports do small businesses
contribute. It is an interesting question.

DFAT statistics shed some light on the amount of manufactured goods Australia exports
and their breakdowns.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics defines manufacturing in these terms -

Originally Posted by Australian Bureau of Statistics

Manufacturing broadly relates to the physical or chemical transformation of materials or components into new products, whether the work is performed by power-driven machinery or by hand.
Manufacturing covers a range of production techniques ranging from computer-assisted production using robots to production of fine jewellery by hand.

However, manufacturing can be divided into simply transformed goods, such as
steel and some chemicals and elaborately transformed goods, such as clothing
or computers.

Of the $41.6 billion of manufactured exports in 2011-12, $15.7 billion were engineering
products. The mix of these were -

Machinery for specialised industries $4.2 billion
Office & telecommunication equipment & parts $2 billion
Road motor vehicles & parts $2.6 billion
Other transport equipment & parts $1.8 billion
Professional, scientific & controlling instruments & apparatus $2.1 billion
Other engineering products $3 billion

Some examples of other elaborately transformed goods include --
Pharmaceutical products $6.4 billion
Essential oils, perfume & cosmetic products $490 million
Plastics and articles of plastic $617 billion

Source -
http://www.dfat.gov.au/publications/...ts-2011-12.pdf

Here are a selection of some random small businesses from the AusIndustry web site that showcase just a few of the types of things people are doing out there -

http://www.maptek.com/
http://www.rubiconwater.com/
http://www.catavolt.com.au/
http://www.podmx.com/