German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle opened CeBIT Australia on May 31 in Sydney. Westerwelle was accompanied by a business delegation from the German ICT industry. The goal of the group is to build upon existing bilateral trade relations between Germany and Australia.

CeBIT Australia will run May 31 - June 2, 2011, at the Darling Harbour Exhibition Centre in Sydney. The event is celebrating its tenth anniversary and, with its mix of exhibition and conferences, plays a key role for new business development.

"CeBIT Australia is the largest B2B trade fair for the information technology and telecommunications industry in the Asia-Pacific region. Foreign Minister Westerwelle opening the event underscores the particular importance of CeBIT Australia for the dialogue between Australian and German business leaders," said Dr. Andreas Gruchow, Member of the Board at Deutsche Messe AG.

In this anniversary year, CeBIT Australia returns to its German roots by initiating for the first time outside of Hannover the Partner Country concept which originated at CeBIT and HANNOVER MESSE. Germany is the first partner country at CeBIT Australia and will showcase more than 25 companies, many of which will participate at the German Pavilion. In addition, international leaders such as abas software, Dell, Hitachi, Kaspersky, NEC, Rittal, and Samsung will exhibit.

With a trade volume of EUR 10.5 billion in 2009, Germany is Australia's tenth largest trading partner overall and the second largest in the EU. With a current value of EUR 90 billion per year, Australia represents the Asia-Pacific's fifth largest ICT market and the world's 11th largest. Approximately 400,000 Australians work in the ICT industry. More than 300 German companies have subsidiaries in Australia which collectively account for 60,000 jobs.

Further information is available at

• CeBIT Australia
• www.cebit.com.au