The report Live Cattle Export Trade: Importance to northern and southern Australian beef industries was released today by ABARE Executive Director Phillip Glyde.

"It is estimated that in 2000-01 around 70 per cent of producers across northern Australia sold at least some of their cattle for live export. At this time, the northern live cattle export industry spread from the Pilbara in Western Australia across to northern Queensland," Mr Glyde said.

Since the early years of this decade, the number of live cattle exported from Australia has fallen due largely to higher Australian saleyard prices and a strengthening dollar.

"But beef producers in the core live export areas such as the Northern Territory Top End and Victoria River districts and the Kimberly region of Western Australia continue to rely heavily on the live export trade for a large proportion of their farm receipts," Mr Glyde added.

"This highlights how the effect of any downturn in these markets or potential disruptions to the live cattle trade would be concentrated on these producers and the economies of these regions."

Australia's success in meeting the growth in south east Asian demand for cattle was made possible by some important changes to the breeding and management systems of northern Australian properties. Improved farm management systems and the greater use of Bos indicus breeds were major factors.

"A distinguishing feature of the beef properties that sell most of their turnoff for live export each year is that they operate larger farms and run larger herds compared with the average for northern Australia," Mr Glyde said.

Throughout this decade the average financial performance of beef properties that focus more on the live export trade has been better than that of their counterparts in northern Australia. In particular, they recorded higher farm business profits and better rates of return.

"This continued to be the case even as the live cattle trade began to slow over the past three or four years, which highlights the underlying profitability of live export beef operations," Mr Glyde concluded.