Retail Trade & Business Services
Retail Trade is a major employment industry in the Mildura City providing 16.3% of employed workforce with a job, compared to 15.3% for Regional Victoria (2001 Census). This is not surprising as Mildura City is becoming recognised as a major shopping centre for a wide area of regional Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales, attracting shoppers from as far as Broken Hill in NSW and the Riverland in SA. The recent expansion of the larger chain stores selling furniture, whitegoods, electrical, recreation and leisure goods has reinforced the city’s role as a major regional centre for comparison shopping.

Link www.milduracity.com.au

Manufacturing
Most business in the manufacturing sector in the Mildura Region service the agriculture industry or are processors adding value to this industry. This includes a major processing sector directed towards packing of premium fruit and vegetables, the sun drying of grapes and the crushing of fruit and vegetables for juice (oranges, grapes and carrots). There is also a major bottling plant servicing the local wineries and emerging opportunities to develop crushing operations for olive oil, fruit and nut confectionary, sun dried vegetables, specialty cooking and pickling, and semi prepared food packs.

Tourism
The Mildura area has been a well-known tourist destination among southeast Australian domestic travelers for some time. The tri-state location (i.e. near the borders of Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia) increases the area’s affinity with each of theses states, especially in regard to nearby tourist attractions. Tourism is a significant contributor to the regional economy. There are many natural attractions including the inland arid climate and landscape, the Murray- Darling River system and natural parks (Mungo and Hattah-Kulkyne).

Link www.visitmildura.com.au

Link www.mildura.vic.gov.au

Property & Construction
Mildura’s residential property market has been characterised by strong increases in both sale activity and prices since the late 1990’s. In 2005 preliminary figures suggest the median house price in Mildura Rural City was up slightly to $181,500 from $177,250 in 2004, the median price for units/apartments similarly was up to $142,500 from $141,000 in 2004, while vacant house blocks were down slightly from $65,975 in 2004 to $63,500 in 2005.

Mining
Salt production in the Mildura Region is a developing industry. Salt is extracted from saline groundwater for agricultural, industrial and more recently food products and has a positive environmental impact on salinity in the region. The emerging new industry of the Mildura Region is mineral sands mining. This industry has typically centered on coastal areas but the new frontier is the rich Murray Valley Basin inland area. Major deposits located North West of Wentworth and South of Mildura will ensure the future development of this vital international industry.

Transport & Storage
The Mildura Region is well serviced by road, rail and air transport. Being at the intersection of major highways Mildura has road access to state capitals and regional centres in Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales. It is the third largest transport distribution centre in the state and provides an important link between the capital cities of these three states. Mildura is also a major freight gate for the Pacific National and is linked by rail to the ports of Melbourne, Geelong and Portland. Both road and rail systems offer refrigerated freight transport and perishable goods may also be sent by airfreight direct to Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide.

Communication Services
The main service providers for telephone, mobile telephone and internet in the Mildura Region are Telstra Country Wide, Neighbourhood Cable Ltd, Hotkey, Optus and Vodaphone. The Mildura Region also has access to four free-to-air television stations which are Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), Prime, WIN Television, Special Broadcasting Services (SBS), channel Ten (Via digital) and Pay – Television services are available through Neighbourhood Cable and Austar Digital. The region has three commercial radio stations where are Radio 99.5 Star FM, Radio 3MA FM 97.9 and Easy Listening 1467AM.