>>reporter: this week on world business... >>seen by many as the democratic conscience of the continent. the parliamentary assembly of the council of europe meets in strasbourg. >>now we are trying to help the countries in the neighbourhood, north africa in the middle east and some countries in central asia. >>reporter: resource rich and with strong trade ties to asia; could western australia be the luckiest state in the lucky country? >>if western australia is by default becoming far more financially independent. >>reporter: and a factory on your desktop, why we could soon be printing objects to order in our own homes. >>you have a machine which plus into your computer and it allows you to instead of printing on flat sheets of paper; to print out three dimensional objects, usually made out of plastic.

>>reporter: hello and welcome. i'm raya abirached and this is world business, your weekly insight into the global business trends shaping our lives. the parliamentary assembly of the council of europe or pace is an international body that aims bring stability to a geographically large and culturally diverse region. its main area of focus is the promotion of democracy and human rights, a role it has fulfilled since its formation shortly after the end of the second world war. since then europe itself has changed drastically, meaning the organisation too has had to adapt. >>reporter: out of the rubble of the second world war

an institution was born hoping to bring unity to a fractured world. the council of europe, seen by many as the democratic conscience of europe, upholds democracy and the rule of law; promotes human rights, freedom of speech and equality. >>by the 1960s it was firmly established as the bulwark of the peace progress... >>in the world of freedom the proudest boast is ich bin ein berliner >>reporter: a quarter of a century later as the berlin wall was torn down and the soviet union dismantled, the council of europe, now established in strasbourg, led the way in helping communist countries transition to democracy. >>people streaming over border.

>>reporter: today we are once again at a defining moment in history and once again it is europe's immediate neighbours at the forefront of that change. >>cavusoglu: now we are trying to help the countries in the neighbourhood, in north africa in the middle east and some countries in central asia and actually we foresaw what is happening right now in the region in 2009 and we establish a new status for those countries to integrate them, to let them become closer to the european institutions and the european standards, council of europe standards. >>reporter: at the assembly there was evidence of that outreach, with the council of europe granting morocco "partner for democracy" status; an initiative designed to strengthen co-operation with non-member states. >>recognition perhaps of both morocco's new constitution and the fact it was largely immune from the unrest felt

by its neighbours in the arab spring. >>biadillah: we are like you, we have the same challenges, such as immigration, drug trafficking and also terrorism. these new challenges need us to create greater co-operation between morocco and europe. >>reporter: morocco sees itself as a model for the wider area and it is not alone. one country that has already made the difficult transition to democracy is the former communist nation of ukraine. >>yanukovych: a lot of changes have taken place in europe and its neighbourhood in the last 60 years. the council has worked to create reforms to the modern challenges. the ukraine welcomes these changes and is ready to participate.

>>reporter: ukraine has been a member of the council of europe since 1995 and earlier this year strengthened its role, when it assumed the chairmanship of the committee of ministers.... >>gryshchenko: as chairman of the council of ministers ukraine works very closely with other member states and the council of ministers secretariat to promote democracy and human rights in the region, but also in ukraine itself. we are ready to share that experience with north africa, with neighbouring states where they can gain from that experience that was not easily gained by our country and by others. >>reporter: the ukrainian president arrived in strasbourg poised to work on concluding the association agreement, a framework for closer political, economic and social cooperation with a view to later

establishing a free trade area between ukraine and the eu. >>the eu is already the country's main trading partner - exports to the region alone bring in around 8 billion euros, accounting for a third of ukraine's international trade. >>closer ties with europe are a powerful draw for the young country about to celebrate 20 years of independence. >>yanukovych: the association agreement has an important meaning to us, because it paves the path for ukranian membership in the eu, this is our goal. ukraine wants to create conditions that meet european standards. >>reporter: the ukraine is after all not only part of europe, but its largest country by size and has

a population of 45 million. growing at 4% - double the eurozone rate - and with its fdi inflows up by 25 per cent on last year it's factors like this drawing the eu's attention east. >>markert: it has a lot of potential and the ukrainian people in the orange revolution have also shown that they want to be european and live according to european standards. so i think it is very much in the european interest to try to build on that >>reporter: another huge country on the eu's eastern border is turkey, itself looking for accession and homeland of the current president of the assembly. he and many others feel that despite the woes within the eurozone, highlighted by the current debt crisis the eu must pursue a path of greater inclusion. >>cavusoglu: this crisis showed once again that the european union needs countries like turkey and ukraine and if you look at the aging problem

of the european union countries, it is very clear that this institution will need definitely turkey and ukraine with the young and educated population. and in the future it is obvious that eu and eu countries will need migration so therefore the best solution is to include the countries like turkey and ukraine to the european union. >>reporter: given the historic geopolitical changes taking place in europe's immediate neighbourhood the council of europe has its work cut out. >>the organisation is now in its sixties and still in its first full time home in strasbourg, but the world outside has changed. it is working to broaden its reach and adapt to an increasingly integrated and globalised world. but fundamentally

the issues it tackles remain the same... >>as the council of europe continues to fight corruption, promote the rule of law and democracy and foster deeper economic integration, it is well- positioned to, once again, help end injustice and tyranny. >>reporter: western australia has a particularly strong economy by anybody's standards. its gross state product per capita is significantly above the national average, on the back of huge reserves of iron ore, nickel and hydrocarbons and strong trades with the booming markets of asia. heather scott sat down with the premier of the state, colin barnett to get his take on how the region will progress in the future. >>barnett: well west australia is probably the world's biggest mining economy and we are very closely tied into japan, china, korea and increasingly india. most of the countries, with the exception of japan,

did not get much affected by the global financial crisis. they are increasingly being driven by internal growth. >>scott: australia and obviously western australia's growth has been powered by the boom in demand from countries like china and india. now there are reports that china may be slowing down. what sort of impact is that likely to have on you? >>barnett: i don't think china will slow down. and i meet frequently with the chinese political leadership and they assure me that china's growth rate will continue at at least 7 or 8% or more. i think china has probably got another 20 years of growth. >>scott: what's your view of the strength of the australian dollar? >>barnett: it is high and that primarily reflects the weakness of the united states dollar. my guess is in time that it will ease back a little bit. so long as commodities are in high demand and the price of commodities are high; the australian dollar will be fairly high. >>scott: how constrained are you by the shortage of skilled labor?

>>barnett: yes the state only has 2.3 million people and at the moment there is 107 billion dollars worth of resource projects either in construction or going into construction. and there is another 194 billion dollars at various stages of assessment and feasibility. so skilled workers; engineers, all sorts of professionals; welders, plumbers, electricians we do need them in literally in tens of thousands. >>scott: so what are your views on wayne swan, the australian treasurers' plans for a carbon tax? >>barnett: well the carbon tax is an issue where most in australia, myself included, believe we are getting ahead of international policy in that area. i am also very skeptical as to whether a carbon tax will actually bring about fundamental change in consumers or indeed in production. and i would prefer, for example to see australia take simple measures to increase the use of natural gas for power generation in australia. i think that

will have a more certain effect and would be largely costless to the australian consumer. >>scott: have you ever thought of seceding from australia as a whole. >>barnett: no, and while western australia did vote to secede in the 1930s, it didn't happen and i don't support secession. but i think what is happening is western australian is, by default, becoming far more financially independent. and unless the commonwealth government recognizes that and has some fairness in commonwealth state relations it is inevitable that the australian federation will weaken. and a line that i often use is that, western australia looks over the horizon to asia, not over the nullarbor to canberra. >>scott: so how productive has your overseas trip been? >>barnett: there's been a number of purposes, i started in dubai and abu dhabi and that is a very important market for meat from western australia and increasingly for grain production. and we are looking at encouraging a more modern

commercial arrangement between those importing countries so that we can play a role in producing high quality agricultural produce, and help those countries in that region achieve food security; which is probably their biggest issue. >>scott: and what about tourism? people in the gulf have got a lot of money >>barnett: they do and many people from the gulf region and the middle east region i suppose generally tend to fly across western australia and often holiday in the gold coast; and the gold coast is a great place but we did talk about at least occasionally varying it and coming to western australia. so i think we've got a lot of opportunities. and western australia while it is the leading mining economy in trades in global markets; we are looking at establishing within our region a special relationship with singapore and a special relationship with the emirates. >>scott: do you think that here in europe business leaders have any ideas of the pace of change in asia? >>barnett: no i don't certainly the world's international businesses are

aware and involved heavily in asia; but come down one level from that, i don't believe european, and including british businesses, are fully aware of the scale and the pace of change in asia. and i also don't believe they have a good understanding of the different systems of government. >>scott: do you think that business leaders here would be wise to look at the australian experience? >>barnett: i think it would be wise and while, for example half of china's economy is now is described as private enterprise. the reality is all the big institutions and the traders in commodities are all state owned enterprises. and we have developed, not without its hiccups, but we have developed a good relationship in trading and dealing with those organizations, including the chinese government at senior level. so australia provides a good model. so my only advice would be, not be careful, but take the time to understand who you are dealing with, who are the decision makers, and understand the country and its system of decision making; and remember it is

a one party state, it is different. >>reporter: still to come on world business >>the high tech process of 3d printing could soon go mainstream. >>and india steps up its quest for a place on the olympic podium. >>medals on their minds... and the rest in just a moment on world business >>reporter: 3d printing is a technique that can create 3 dimensional objects by laying down multiple layers of material. the technology in itself is not that new, but costs have now dropped to a level where domestic 3d printing is a real possibility.

>>3d printing is impressive technology; machines that can literally print almost any object you could imagine, from a wide range of materials, practically instantly on demand. and its potential is vast.... >>bowyer: 3d printing, conceptually fairly straight forward. you have a machine which plugs into your computer and it allows you instead of printing on flat sheets of paper to print out three-dimensional objects, usually made out of plastic. >> marks: when 3d printers first arrived they were dubbed the santa claus machine by people who first came across them because it just seemed utterly magical that you could design something in 3d on a computer and then have it come out of a machine as if by magic. >>the technology has been around for some time, but has maintained a low profile until recently not least because of the colossal price tag attached to early devices. typically around $70,000 >>but prices are dropping rapidly. over the past decade, companies like hewlett packard have developed the technology behind what they call their 'officeable' printer, the designjet 3d. >>erickson: at a commercial

level, 3d printing alone represents about two to three hundred million dollars in revenues each year. and it's something that's growing, so we would expect the market to go all the way up to a billion within the next five to ten years. >>although it's still not cheap, if you coughed up about 18,000 dollars, you could walk home with a something approaching a desktop factory. >>in time it's hoped that this technology could trigger the start of a manufacturing revolution one led by a mouse click rather than a monkey wrench. >>erickson: this wrench was printed just as it is. so this wasn't printed in three pieces and then assembled, you see there's three different pieces this is a fully functioning wrench, made out of plastic, so you probably wouldn't be able to do very much with it but as a prototype it's fantastic. >>in the london office of foster and partners, they've been using 3d printing and rapid prototyping for some six years in their architectural models. >>despite lacking some of the finer detail and durability of their traditionally hand-made cousins, sketch models produced using 3d printing techniques are much quicker and cheaper to manufacture.

>>de kestelier: although we thought it was going to be kind of quite a niche thing within the office, i think nowadays almost every project in the office uses rapid prototyping or 3d printing >>vandersteen: we've become obviously more experienced. we're really pushing it to its limits and we can produce some really complex parts quite fragile parts that actually, even some of the manufactures are blown away with in terms of the level of detail we're able to create with these. >>these sorts of machine are far beyond the price range of most homes and offices. but at the university of bath, researchers are working on the 3rd generation of a desktop printer that can even reproduce many of itsown parts. it's called the replicating rapid prototyper or reprap >>bowyer: one of the reasons why they were so expensive is because all the technologies were patented. and as a consequence everybody has a monopoly on their particular technology. >>the manufacturers use the same strategy as the manufacturers of inkjet printers, namely the inkjet printer manufacturers more or less give you a printer and then sell you ink. the 3d printing manufacturers don't give you a printer, they sell you a printer, but then

they sell you the plastic. >>the reprap on the other hand is entirely open source meaning the plans for the machine are distributed freely. add to that, the fact that it can run off a solar-powered car battery and you have a remarkably flexible piece of technology. >>bowyer: there we go. one coat hook made in the machine, made out of polylactic acid, which is the plastic that we use from preference >>polylactic aid is a plastic made from starch and starch of course comes from plants. so anyone who can grow a small plant crop on a few tens of square metres of land and can make their own supply of plastic to put in the machine. so you can be almost completely independent. >>with cheap 3d printers becoming more accessible, patent holders are on edge. the ability to copy a design and reproduce it at home is a real possibility, one that has clear implications for industry. >>garrett: commercial 3d printers will give you a lot better quality and a lot better reliability as well but the makerbot will give you something which looks 90%

as good as a commercial 3d printer for 10% of the price. >>marks: it's fascinating and also slightly worrying that it might replace lego isn't it? the idea that children design things in the computer and out they come rather than, you know, the tangible effect of picking up pieces and building things and realising how strong they are, how weak they are. >>although we're a long way off printing out something as advanced a mobile phone just yet, researchers aren't short of ideas of where to look next. >>erickson: what i can see is that you can go down the street to your copy shop and have a part made there that you'd sent, maybe you'd sent the part the night before and you go down and it's ready the next day and you go and pick it up. >>xavier: we're doing some research together with loughborough university and we're looking at the concept of 3d printing, mainly layered manufacturing. building something up layer-by-layer taking that to a building scale. so we're looking if we can actually print concrete, so we're developing there a 3d printer

that actually prints concrete and pretty large pieces, about two metres high. >>and if that works, this technology could not only revolutionise manufacturing, but the entire construction industry as well. >>reporter: india has traditionally had time for only one sport.... cricket. but robust economic growth and greater exposure has recently encouraged interest in other sports including soccer, formula one and the olympics. and if a small group of people has their way, then the quest for medals at the olympics, could translate into gains that would have been impossible to imagine even a few years ago. >>india may be one of the economic stars of the emerging markets, but when it comes to olympic sport the country is an appalling underperformer. >>desai: we wanted that india should be on the sports map also on the internationally.

we are there in commerce, we are there in education, all across the board, except in sport we seem to be missing out. >>the olympic gold quest is india's first major attempt to win medals for the country. a non profit foundation managed by big names in indian business it takes care of logistics and funds but expects athletes to perform... >>desai: every athlete of ours has a contract of typically one year at a time, because we set benchmarks for them for improvement. it's just what happens in most commercial and other organizations, where rewards are based on performance. so if the improvement is not there, then they are pulled up. >>their most prominent athlete is gagan narang, who holds the world record in the men's 10-metre air rifle event, and has already qualified for the 2012 london olympics.

>>narang: they bridge the gap between actual expenditure and the expenditure met by the government. so in case i need support staff for myself, especially coaching needs; in case i need to go abroad to get my jacket or trouser, or anything related to my equipment, is taken care by them; the travel is taken are by them. so it really takes a lot of botheration and hassles off an athlete's mind, and the athlete is really able to focus on his job of performance. >>meanwhile, steel baron lakshmi mittal, put aside 10 million dollars of his personal wealth in 2005 to promote sporting talent and encourage potential olympians. >>malhotra: what we tried to do was take athletes that were prominent nationally but hadn't made it internationally, and get them on to that platform. and get them there through a very professional approach, where their systems, their nutrition, they physiotherapy, their science testing, even their exposures was chalked out and mapped out in a professional manner, which was never done before.

>>one of the beneficiaries of this has been 19-year old siddhanth thingalaya, who specializes in the 110 metre hurdles. with few world-class coaches in this event in india, the mittal champions trust sent him for training in australia. >>thingalaya: if i'm in india, they will sponsor me for these things; for my shoes, for my sportsgear and for my hurdles; and also giving me an opportunity to train in australia with a very experience coach. >>ugra: what they did is what indian sports administration had not done that is, put the elite athletes at the centre of the whole programme which is what these bodies have done. and you see it in the medals, you see it in the results. >>at the commonwealth games in delhi last year, india dominated the shooting events, winning seven gold medals. >>a dozen indian shooters are expected to qualify for the london olympics, and there is growing public pressure on them to win medals. >>narang: i guess the expectations have gone up,

and the world is watching us. we've been trying to do our best. of course it's sport, so it's very unpredictable >>both the olympic gold quest and the mittal champions trust agree they can complement the government's role in developing sport, but can never fully replace it. >>malhotra: for one organisation like myself to go into and take 20,000 youth for example, in a sport like wrestling because it's popular, is impossible. i do not have the connect and the reach to do that, whereas the government has that; they have development schemes, they have little stadiums, they're not the best stadiums in the world but they do have connect with that.if they can organize that system and put that system under a wing where that system has to deliver a certain amount of results, that will be the only way forward because right now there's nothing expected of you; if i'm a coach in some small little village in haryana, there's nothing expected of me.

>>most experts believe india could win 7 medals or more at the london olympics. this would be a huge jump for the country, more than doubling its tally at beijing. but even the most optimistic supporter admits it will be a long haul for india to achieve greater olympic glory. >>reporter: and that's it for this week's world business. thanks for watching. we'll see you again at the same time next week.