I recently had a look at the Year Book Australia, 2012 and was interested in seeing the current state of Australian Industry. From this page on the Australian Bureau of Statistics website, in 2010-2011 Australia had a GDP of around 1.32 trillion Australian dollars ($58k per capita) with the following breakdown by sector.
One can see here how the Construction and Financial and Insurance sectors have increased in GDP share over the past decade while manufacturing has decreased. Interestingly Mining is only around 7% of GDP and this figure has remained steady from ten years ago.
In mining as of 2009 Australia was the world’s largest “producer” of iron ore, and fourth largest (behind China, USA, India) of coal. Interestingly four countries produce 75% of the world’s iron ore: Australia, Brazil, India and China.
In 2009-2010 Australia had a business expenditure on Research and Development of around 1.3% of its GDP on (source: here)
Imports and exports were each of value around 20% of GDP (source: here). I stumbled onto the Observatory of Economic Complexity that helps one to visualise the breakdown further, over the last 15 years.
Compare the 1995 and 2010 breakdowns to see how China has become Australia’s largest export partner.
Countries Australia exports to in 1995 (left) and 2010 (right)
Next we see a breakdown of Australian exports and imports by sector. Note how dominant the mineral products have become.
Australian Exports in 1995 (left) and 2010 (right)
Finally we see machinery and transportation dominating Australian imports.
Australian Imports in 1995 (left) and 2010 (right)
For more such tree maps, see this list of countries by economic complexity.