Australian Bureau of Statistics
Celebrating the International Year of Statistics 2013

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The mining industry has been spending increasing amounts of R&D expenditure. Over the period 1992-93 to 2001-02, expenditure has increased by 203% from $176m in 1992-93 to $534m in 2001-02. At the end of this period, mining accounted for 9.6% of total R&D expenditure by all industries in comparison to 6.2% in 1992-93. The manufacturing industry's share of total R&D expenditure continued to be the highest, accounting for 43% in 2001-02.

Graph 16.21 shows the type of R&D expenditure by the mining industry. For the period 1992-93 to 2001-02, current expenditure other than labour costs is the major component of R&D expenditure for the mining industry, accounting for 82% of mining R&D expenditure in 2001-02. This category includes expenses on materials, fuels, rent and hiring, repairs and maintenance and data processing etc. and the proportion of expenses on general services and overheads attributable to R&D activity. In the mining industry, these expenses increased by $343m (373%) from $92m in 1992-93 to $435m in 2001-02, while the amount spent on labour and capital fell. As a result, labour cost and capital expenditure as a proportion of total R&D expenditure fell to 12% and 6.4% respectively in 2001-02. For all industries, other current expenditure of $2,737m accounted for 49% of total expenditure ($5,546m) in 2001-02, while labour costs contributed 43% ($2,398m) and capital expenditure 7.4% ($410m).

16.22 EXPENDITURE ON R&D, By selected locations(a)
	1997-98			1998-99			1999-2000			2000-01			2001-02
	Mining	All industries		Mining	All industries		Mining	All industries		Mining	All industries		Mining	All industries
	'000	'000		'000	'000		'000	'000		'000	'000		'000	'000
NSW	115,489	1,432,711		91,349	1,391,692		37,265	1,440,297		57,095	1,737,401		84,623	2,070,607
Vic.	32,067	1,444,499		37,940	1,445,212		36,964	1,495,106		31,499	1,718,379		36,176	1,792,740
Qld	123,149	486,278		71,736	437,246		72,642	441,523		116,628	523,953		216,613	722,889
SA	n.p.	241,429		35,072	248,516		20,559	247,342		25,452	295,175		n.p.	364,216
WA	195,735	465,544		214,932	440,177		102,699	336,538		213,426	479,043		122,570	403,628
Other(b)	30,375	122,495		22,368	89,341		17,260	110,832		14,135	99,619		25,206	115,044
Overseas	n.p.	28,105		11,345	42,517		3,882	40,722		4,188	63,788		n.p.	76,411
Total	536,646	4,221,061		484,742	4,094,701		291,271	4,112,360		462,423	4,917,357		533,948	5,545,534
(a) Excludes businesses in Agriculture, forestry and fishing (i.e. in ANZSIC Division A). (b) Other states and territories.
Source: Research and Experimental Development, Businesses, Australia (8104.0).