NSW 2040 Economic Blueprint.

The NSW 2040 Blueprint identifies challenges and risks and highlights major opportunities for the NSW Government to grow industries, innovate and improve economy. The Blueprint after an Executive Summary and Recommendations Section is organised in 6 Chapters and 2 Appendixes.
The NSW 2040 Blueprint’ s aspirations are: 1) Become the Nation’s first trillion-dollar economy - the economy should be diversified in favour of fast-growing industries and services and be expanding quickly enough to lift living standards; 2) High standard of living for a population that is healthy, well-educated and skilled for high income jobs of the future; 3) The five major urban centres should be vibrant and well-connected, with modern infrastructure well-suited to growing population’s needs; 4) Regions should be productive and growing, serviced by world-class infrastructure and transport links; 5) Businesses and industries innovation and a government that leaves a lighter footprint on private sector activity; 6) Environment and biodiversity be preserved for future generations and reliable and affordable energy sources, with enhanced water resilience across the State; 7) Enhanced performance of government encouraging innovation, particularly via procurement.
To achieve those aspirations the NSW 2040 Blueprint identifies 7 Levers. Lever 1: Human Capital, there is a need to address the skill shortages and mismatches in the current workforce. Lever 2: Institutions, the performance of government, including via procurement policies and the government’s promotion of a so-called Global NSW need to be boosted. Lever 3: Fiscal policy, the focus is on state’s taxation powers and the ability to spend the revenue raised and relations with the Commonwealth Government. Lever 4: Infrastructure, innovation and world’s best practice are encouraged to ensuring that the transport network can support a growing population. Lever 5: Innovation, this entails the establishment of mixed arts and technology creative precincts, government incentives to encourage investment in research and development, government acting as a facilitator for collaboration between industry, universities, government, and the community. Lever 6: Energy and natural resources policy, this includes a focus on specific areas affecting energy policy, water resilience and the environment. Lever 7: Industry development and sector strategies, the focus is on aiding the development of potential high-growth, high-skill industries and establishing rules and ongoing evaluation processes for industries selected for assistance.
To what concern food security, the Blueprint recognises a direct link between water resilience and food security and economic growth. Water resilience and management is a key issue that is repeated across the Blueprint. Food security in the Blueprint is related to food export.
Make agriculture more productive and sustainable is one of the aspirations of the Blueprint; an agricultural industry that is productive and vibrant able to cope with the growing demand for clean food from the middle class in Asia and that at the same time makes a more efficient uses of water resources.
The Blueprint enables more inclusive and efficient agricultural and food systems identifying the solutions to food production constrains, these include enhancement of transport and connectivity and innovation in agribusiness and food technology.
The Blueprint addresses the issue of climate change resilience; it recognises that among constraints to agricultural and food industry expansion there is the likelihood of more frequent droughts resulting from climate change and a strong and coordinated response to this will help to determine how much food – and the types of food – that NSW can produce. “Flexibility to deal with changing climate” by 2040 is one of the aspirations of the Blueprint.