Lithium Valley Main Report 2018
downstream processing there is the opportunity to mitigate country concentration risk and diversify across a wider range of global customers, which is why the EU is important. Additional weaknesses include supply chain capacity and costs, limited vacant land, lack of exports, and capacity issues at the existing berths. These are all symptoms of the same issue, which is the lack of international competitiveness. WA is suffering from a lack of scale. In the past the domestic population has been the main demand driver for Kwinana infrastructure development, apart from the big international developments like Alcoa, BP, Tronox, Nickel West, etc. This domestic focus has meant smaller-scale supply chains and facilities resulting in lower volumes and higher costs. The delivery of greater volumes of products requires new production, supply chains and operational facilities. How this can be developed is a critical part of the development process for the industrial park. Industry consultation has highlighted the lack of government incentives compared to other States like Victoria or South Australia, or other countries such as Malaysia and Singapore. WA needs to be more proactive and potentially offer incentives for strategic companies and industries and generally be more proactive and aggressive. Because of the importance of New Energy metals, other countries and even other Australian states will make every effort to entice companies away from WA if the State Government continues to be complacent and underestimate the competition. 6.6.3. Opportunities New Energy metals and battery manufacturing are set to become one of the largest and most important technological waves in human history. The impact of the developing technologies will change every corner of the globe. WA has a major initial advantage with the sourcing of the majority of the key elements locally. In addition, the WTC, the legal and political system and reliable history of exporting only add to WA’s competitive advantage in this arena. The opportunity is to inform and attract companies with the necessary intellectual property for secondary processing to WA.
Australia’s trading partners continue to improve, ongoing domestic reforms to improve competitiveness need to be prioritised. 6.6.2. Weaknesses Based on recent interviews, industry highlighted a lack of departmental focus and a lack of understanding of business commercial drivers as obstacles to industry growth and development. There is heavy competition between regional industrial parks with different parts of government favouring regional sites at Kemerton, Geraldton, Pilbara, Goldfields-Esperance and the Kimberley. However, while there is a strong need to deliver economic development to these sites and their communities, significant investment needs to be considered, or at least, clearing the basic environmental approvals to make them viable and attractive for companies to move there. In the meantime, the WTC has the necessary approvals, infrastructure and workforce to kickstart the Lithium Valley concept. According to industry, the greatest weakness that has impacted the WTC region for decades has been a lack of a coherent focus from both the State and local governments. Inconsistent planning has allowed increasing urban (residential) encroachment around industrial areas, blocked and curtailed investment, reduced international competitiveness, stunted supply chains and impacted operations. A more co-ordinated government approach is required to allow the region to grow and develop more effectively. Moving the focus of regulations from prescriptive to objective could result in a transfer of the risk from the government to the private sector. This may be through reducing monitoring costs, improving risk management as the private sector is better equipped and resourced to manage the risks, and the refocusing of government staff from routine compliance monitoring to the proactive development of sensible regulation frameworks. Industry and WA in general often has a customer concentration risk, that is, relying upon one or a couple of key countries for sales. With New Energy metals and
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