The Department of State and Regional Development has produced a new report to showcase the strengths of NSW and Sydney to international investors.

The 2008 NSW Competitiveness Report brings together economic, trade and other data to compare NSW with other locations in the Asia Pacific, North America and Europe.

Minister for State Development Ian Macdonald said: "This report aims to attract new business, investment and skilled workers to our shores, to help drive the NSW economy and create more high quality jobs.

"It provides a wealth of valuable information from Australian and international resources, to help sell our strengths to national and international business markets."

The 2008 NSW Competitiveness Report focuses on five key areas of the NSW economy: the economic and business climate; quality of life; people, skills and education; trade and investment; and infrastructure and business costs.

The report shows the NSW economy is the largest and most diverse in Australia and the value of the goods and services produced here is higher than many national economies in the Asia Pacific.

A few highlights from the report include:

• NSW is the largest State economy in Australia, surpassing many national economies in the Asia Pacific, including all of those in South-East Asia with the exception of Indonesia.


• Sydney has maintained its status as the number one city rated by travellers, and as having the strongest city 'brand' in the world according to the 2007 Anholt City Brands Index


• Sydney and NSW are among the most culturally diverse locations in the world. Over 1.3 million NSW residents spoke a language other than English at home in 2006, most of these people living in Sydney. In fact, almost a third of people living in Sydney speak a non-English language at home.


• NSW's exports of goods and services rose almost 7% to $47 billion in 2006-07. The largest export sector in NSW was services, which accounted for more than 40% of total exports

The report is available and regularly updated online at http://www.business.nsw.gov.au/aboutnsw/default.htm