The regional economics literature explains that hi-tech industrial clusters are nurtured by large urban agglomerations with their focus on research and development, skilled workforces, and easy access to materials and markets. This recipe works in a lot of case, but rural Australia throws up a lot of exceptions to the general rule. I visited one such site yesterday with the bus party -see my previous post. Who would have expected to find a leading technology business surrounded by fields at the edge of the major city of Deepwater, population 200. This little township is located 140 km north of Armidale and 320 km from Brisbane.
A large local farming family, the Tretheweys, has set up factories manufacturing some very swish equipment with global markets and ties with companies in China and the US. They produce stock handling equipment, balers to compress waste materials (metals, card-board, plastics), and electronic equipment for use in the electricity industry. The inter-linked companies include Ti-Autobaler and Starlogixs, with the latter producing specially designed integrated circuits and then incorporating them in specialist equipment also produced locally. And you've guessed correctly that the Tretheweys hail - several generations ago - from Cornwall.
The pictures show some of the production facilities, their pastoral setting, and their products.
AS
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