Australia is hamstrung economically in industrialising because the profits from our chief assets, our natural resources, go to overseas owners and that no exetrnal agency is willing to offer loans (not equity) in order for us to industrialise and unlike US & British Governments of the mid/late 19C that supported the development of and local ownership of manufacturing, our Commonwealth , State & Muni Governments have swallowed Neo-Liberalism hook line & sinker.
If we disregard China's meteoric rise from Agrarian/proto industrialism over the past 40 years, we can look at Singapore as at an industrial paradigm which is half ways between China and Western developed economies.
"Singapore's largest industry by far is the manufacturing sector, which contributes 20%-25% of the country's annual GDP. Key industry clusters in Singapore's manufacturing include electronics, chemicals, biomedical sciences, logistics and transport engineering."
And this has been achieved with virtually no raw industrial materials , little land to feed itself (virtually a City-State) and rebuilding itself from the devastating effects of WW2.
