| Local Economics | |
The following resources provides links to web sites where teachers and students may find information about local markets. These include not only outdoor markets such as the Queen Victoria Market but also strip shopping centres and major retail concentrations such as Northlands and Chadstone etc. A list of websites for some of the more well known outdoor markets is included below. Local council web sites and industry associations often have useful information on local markets. The Victorian Government also offers a great deal of useful information on Industries and related market in Victoria. The best one stop shop for this type of information is Sensis,com. Sensis owned by Testra and links in with the yellow pages. It also offers a student seach engine. Search for Chambers of Commerce and Trade Association and you will usually find relevant hits. These often have the specific detailed commentary required for invetsigating a particular market, industry or product.
Who are your buyers? Collecting local data?
Department of sustainability and environment maintains a database called Know Your Area . Here students can search for demographic information, housing statistics, employment patterns in your local area. The DB also offers links to local councils in your area as well as other business development organisation. The data is based on the last census however it is free and useful for educational purposes. The department sites also contains a great deal of information on local environmental issues and projects that may be easily incorporated into a study of local markets.
The Australian Bureau of StatisticsThe ABS offers a range of resources for collecting data about local area's. Schools may purchase the ABS CD-Rom Census for schools which is the best resource available for local area information. Details can be found in the ABS:Education Services of the ABS site. If students choose education>School Education>Teacher Tools and classroom activities they can access some free 2001 census data and activities ABS:Census Profile Curriculum Activities on gathering data about your local area. Some of this data requires payment and some is free. See ABS:Census Data This page can be accessed from the Census link on the ABS home page. Students can see local suburban statistical profiles, profiles and time series data by post code. These days the ABS freely provides a huge range of local data eminently suitable for classroom use.
The Victorian Business Channel This site is a portal providing general adive to business. It contains some useful resources for business owners who want to research their market.
The resources below allow you to search for news articles in your local papers. some require registration and will charge for the service.
Fairfax Community Newspapers Online FCN papers will be available online however this appears to be taking some time.
Search at the age for articles from some of these papers.
Newstext Search Local papers at News corporation papers. Here you can access articles from Leader papers.
How does Economic Policy affect your industry or market?
Victoria Online is the Victorian Governments portal. This provides access to a large collection of Victorian goverment departments and local information. Choose Gvernment and Politics.. This section will give you access to the web sites of every local council in Victoria. Many local councils post details of their economic policies on their web sites. This section also gives you access to Victorian statistics.
Victorian Department of Competition and Efficiency
The Municipal Association of Victoria offers a range of information about local Government and local Government projects as well.
VLGA - Victorian Local Governance Association This site is offers information about how to succeed in local Government. It has a magazine and a useful set of links.
The Department of Sustainability and Environement. This site offers a great deal of information about the resource requirements for supporting and developing local infrastructure. How many schools etc will a suburb need? What will be the environmental impacts etc?
Victoria Online This site is a gateway to Victoria Government web sites. Details of the State Budget and state funded local projects can be found here, state based strategies to promote investment may also be accessed. The section dealing with Business and Industry offers links to material on a wide range of Government intiatives that all impact on local area's.
Business in Victoria This a great site from the government and contains a selection of statistics on Victoria and other economic themes. It also has a collection of successful small business case studies including local exporters and population data.
Department of Industry and Regional Development This site outlines the Governments economic and regional development policies. Students can also access the web network of regional business centres set up to promote local economic growth. Students can access details of policies to promote exports, ICT and biotechnology industries.
Sensis Small Business Sensis publishes quite a bit of uts economic research and surveys that usually focus on small business.
The following sites relates to specific areas and regions and describe economic activities within them. These are useful if you are investigating local markets. Teachers need to check these before refering students to them. Some are extremely useful and others are not. They do however contain contact information that is useful for arranging speakers and excursions. Many local areas do not have chambers of Commerce and or regional development bodies.
VECCI Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry
Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Offers many links to member web sites that may cover your local area.
Morwell Chamber Of Commerce And Industry
Most local councils have websites these days and they contain links to other important local economic bodies. Victoria online maintains a list of the websites of every local council in Victoria. Victoria Online
Some local outdoor markets such as Queen Victoria market and Prahran market maintain websites that are useful source of background information for students investigating these markets.
Market Affairs Australia A few on articles on outdoor markets and state listings of key markets. The site appears to be updated infrequently.
Visit Victoria This site is a gateway for tourists however it offers current information on Victoria's main outdoor markets. This inlcudes opening and closing times for planning excursions and often links to their websites if available.
Department of Primary Industries Horticultural Page Contains general information and factsheets on this industry.
Dingley Village Neighbourhood Centre
Welcome To The Dandenong Market
Teachers who are investigating agricultural markets may wish to focus on the Melbourne wholesale market for fruit and vegetables. Excursions can be organised to the market. Their website contains a lot of useful information for students undertaking projects on this topic. A collection of related links for this market have been inlcuded below.
Melbourne Market Authority This is the Melbourne wholesale market in Footscray. Information on prices may be purchased from DataFresh. Annual subscriptions are expensive but Datafresh publish annual summaries that are available for around$17.00. Students may find it amusing to visit the site of the Melbourne Tomato Committee
AgriBusiness offers a great deal of information about this industry internationally as well as maintaining current prices for fruit and vegetables from some of the worlds major markets.
Victorian Chambers of Fresh Fruit Wholesalers
Queensland Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Growers
Orchardists and Cool Stores Association
Green Grocer an online green grocer that allows students to compare wholesale and retail prices in Sydney.
World Union of wholesale markets international gateway for wholesale markets everywhere.