The Hon Karen Andrews, Australia‘s minister for trade, tourism, and investment, has recently announced through a press release that the Morrison Government will help to flourish the blockchain technology by laying required foundation, writing a national blockchain roadmap and donating AU$100,000 ($71K) towards advancing its usage within the public sector that will help Australia to become “world leader” in budding blockchain industry. According to Karen Andrews, its lifetime opportunity to utilize the advent of the blockchain technology that Australia shouldn’t miss.
“The national strategy puts us on the front foot in exploring how government and industry can enhance the long-term development of blockchain and its uses,” said Andrews, after calling for Australians to “seize the opportunities presented by blockchain.”
She promised that the national blockchain roadmap will focus on primary aspects of adopting blockchain that includes strict yet business friendly regulation, required skills and capacity building, innovation, investment, and international competitiveness and collaboration. She has furthered declared $100,000 ($71,000) of funding for Australian blockchain startups and ventures which are looking forward to joining Austrade’s Mission at Coindesk’s Consensus conference in New York in May this year. The funding will directly come from the Australian trade and investment commission.
Explaining the Austrade’s Mission, Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment Simon Birmingham said that: “Austrade’s upcoming mission will connect Australian blockchain companies and start-ups with investors and customers with a view to expanding their businesses globally.” The mission is to work with industry experts to figure out the various ways of utilizing the blockchain in all possible field of business that will not only boost Australia’s strength in the development of blockchain technology but also give it the competitive edge in the global economy.
“It is vital Australia and our tech companies stay ahead of the game in one of the world’s fastest growing technology sectors,” Minister Birmingham said.
It isn’t the first time that Australia has prepared such initiatives to propel the blockchain adoption in the country. Previously, in 2018, the Liberal National Government invested AU$700,000 ($521,000) into the ‘Digital Transformation Agency’ with the aim to find out the benefits of blockchain for distributing government payments. A further AU$350,000 ($249,000) was also given to Standards Australia in order to create international blockchain standards with the help of the International Organization for Standardization. But one of the biggest investments by the Aussies was AU$1 billion ($771M) contract awarded to IBM in 2018 which can dwarf all the above-mentioned investments.
