Loftus Harris: He's a man on a mission - trade - Brief Article

Business Asia, Oct 25, 1999 by Cameron Cooper

The job confronting Loftus Harris sounds simple: expand trade opportunities for NSW business. So far he seems to be succeeding.

For a man with big ideas for New South Wales business, Loftus Harris is content to think small.

"Small" as in SMEs, or small-and medium-sized businesses.

As director general of the NSW Department of State and Regional Development, one of Harris's main tasks is to promote SMEs and take their products and services to the world.

Organising trade missions to many markets, particularly Asia, is second nature for Harris, who says those trips demonstrate the diversity of markets in which NSW businesses are competitive.

"And that's often because the companies themselves are small, nimble and innovative," he told Business Asia. "Ten to 15 years ago small was almost a pejorative term. Now it means that you can be into a market faster than your competitors and if you've got a niche advantage then you can do very well."

Feedback from business leaders about Harris and his department has been overwhelmingly positive (see story this page). Harris, however, does not linger over the compliments.

Instead, he identifies what business leaders want. It's not handouts, he says, but insight into markets: advice, expertise, contacts, support and skill.

Although SMEs are his focal point, Harris cannot ignore larger business issues -- and they do not come much bigger for New South Wales than next year's Olympic Games. It's an event that has spawned huge building business.

But even with a year to go before the Olympic flame is lit, talk in Sydney has already turned to life after the Games.

Not surprisingly, Harris plays down the "popular perception" of a construction letdown after the Olympics.

"We've already identified projects in metropolitan and regional New South Wales that run in excess of A$13 billion -- some of them starting after the Olympics, some getting started about now -- that will be carrying on through that period," he said.

Whereas industry forecaster BIS Shrapnel expects a nationwide decline in the building sector in 2000-01, Harris predicts nothing more than a "minor dip" in NSW.

The business mood is strong in NSW, according to Harris, and he reckons the Asia-Pacific business community will see Sydney in an even better light because of the Games.

Twenty years ago Sydney might have been "left alone" at the end of an Olympic Games, he says, but that is no longer likely "because we've become a much more international community and ... we've got through that threshold of being a genuine international place to do business".

Notwithstanding Asia's financial crisis and current tensions with Indonesia, Harris envisions Australia's trade engagement with Asia as a "geographic inevitability".

He believes we are well placed to serve the region and find a sustainable competitive advantage. High value-added areas such as information technology support and solutions -- the "smart end" of business development -- will be critical. Clever, innovative "new manufacturing" ideas in specialised areas will also be drivers of business.