The announcement that a cutting-edge technology centre will be built as the core of a four hectare business, industrial and distribution park in Sydney's west is a welcome initiative to help stop local innovation disappearing overseas.

Arrow Electronics Australia and National Semiconductor announced today that National has appointed Arrow Electronics as a distributor for its products in Australia and New Zealand.

Elenex and Automate 2000 surpassed all expectations, drawing an audience of 8,362 key buyers, specifiers and decision-makers from the manufacturing and process industries and treating them to many exciting and interesting innovations in Australian and International technology.

Obiat has announced that it is the authorised Australian distributor for the range of precision variable frequency, variable voltage, variable phase AC power sources manufactured by California Instruments of San Diego.

The inaugural AEEMA Excellence Awards have recognised the achievements of a selection of Australian companies in innovation, environmental, new business, and exporting activities.

Seidel Servo Drives has appointed Motion Technologies Pty Ltd as their sole Australian and New Zealand sales and service agent.

According to an ABS report (based on 1997-1998 data) released this week on the contribution of Tourism to the Australian economy, the Tourism sector is performing well compared to traditional primary industries such as mining and agriculture. But the clear winner is the manufacturing sector, which has been shown to be Australia's greatest contributor by far to national earnings - three times as much as the Tourism industry.

The Australian Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers' Association (AEEMA) highly commends the strategic plan for the SA electronics industry.

The Australian Photonics Cooperative Research Centre (CRC), in association with the Australian Electrical & Electronic Manufacturers' Association (AEEMA), is holding two forums on Wednesday 8th and Thursday 9th November, at the National Convention Centre in Canberra.

REDlab, a test laboratory for the development of telecommunications, opto-electronics and high-tech electronics products, was officially opened in Melbourne this week.

Taking the next step in the evolution of its DSP56800 core, Motorola Inc. today announced the enhanced DSP56800E core family of digital signal processors (DSPs).

Mac and PC networking peripherals specialist, AdNet, has been appointed Australian distributor of the range of high-capacity FireWire ORB Hard Drives & G-Force RAID storage systems manufactured by US based company, Fantom Drives.

Christchurch based electronics manufacturer, Invensys Energy Systems, has secured a multi million dollar manufacturing contract.

Intellect has signaled its entry into a new market through a contract to provide secure electronic ticketing systems for the Dutch railways.

Two Australian electronic companies have undergone name changes this month.