A report by Deloitte Access Economics has predicted that South Australia will become "a titan of the global resource landscape" but warns that its manufacturing sector is flagging due to the high Australian dollar and struggling to remain a significant employer.

 

The report described South Australia as “a world-class minerals province with almost 40 per cent of the globe's known recoverable uranium reserves as well as significant volumes of copper, gold and silver.".

 

Deloitte’s report coincides with a report from the Australian Bureau of Statistics which shows that South Australia's Manufacturing industry has recorded negative growth in annual average employment between 2000-01 and 2009-10.

Since 2006-07, the  SA Manufacturing industry has been surpassed by Health Care and Social Assistance as the industry with the largest average annual employment in South Australia.

 

In 2009-10, Manufacturing had average annual employment of 83,700 persons compared with 103,300 for Health Care and Social Assistance.

 

Other South Australian growth industries in terms of average annual employment were the Construction and the Professional, Scientific and Technical industries.

From a production perspective Manufacturing still recorded the largest contribution to South Australia's economy over 2000-01 to 2009-10. However, its contribution to Gross State Product (GSP), in industry gross value added terms, fell from 15.0% to 11.7% over this period. To some degree, this decline was offset by the state's Construction industry which increased its contribution to GSP from 4.4% to 6.6%, and Health Care and Social Assistance up from 6.7% to a 7.4% share of GSP.

 

SA Treasurer Jack Snelling is quoted in the Adelaide Advertiser saying the Deloitte report confirmed the importance of the Government’s investments in the mining sector the Plan for Accelerating Exploration initiative (PACE 2020), in the defence sector, in infrastructure such as the South Road Superway, the Port Stanvac desalination plant and the new Royal Adelaide Hospital, and in training.