8 | Economy & Trade South Australia is currently the 5th largest economy in Australia by GSP. Its growth in 2018-19 matched this, ranking 5th at 1.4%. Adelaide is gradually transforming to be a hub for innovation and forward thinking.
Figure 4 - Australian GSP by State 2009 and 2019 (Black Quay, 2020)
Whilst Adelaide’s days as a blue-collar manufacturing hub continues to reduce (recognising some success areas such as some applicable defence activities), the city has already morphed into a high-tech manufacturing and design, healthcare, education, and retail hub. Although South Australia continues to hold market share in the manufacture of some hard products, even current regional growth in high-tech manufacturing outweighs this. Disruptive industries such as 3D printing and
renewable energy enablement are where large-scale change in the longer term could eventuate from. A new era of localised manufacturing could potentially derive from Adelaide’s population increases, a retention of brainpower in the region as companies take advantage of cost reductions versus the eastern mega cities, and development of its existing prowess as a technological hub. In many ways, Adelaide is ideally suited to embracing disruptive change in manufacturing including a highly trained
