The official hydrogen event in Rotterdam spoke to the world’s hydrogen and energy leaders about the future outlook for the hydrogen industry, including the Trade and Investment Commissioner at Austrade, Annika Barton.
Anika Barton is Austrade’s Trade and Investment Commissioner based in the Netherlands. Austrade is the Australian federal government trade and Investment Promotion Agency and what they’re doing is promoting Australian export capability as well as investment opportunities in the hydrogen space in the Netherlands and more broadly in the European Union.
What is your experience at the World Hydrogen 2022 Summit & Exhibition?
So far, it’s going really well. You can see from the stand behind us that’s we’re quite the popular location. We’ve had a lot of foot traffic here throughout the event, and we’ve brought around 26 companies from Australia with us, including large project owners and innovative technology companies, and there’s been a lot of buzz around the Australian industry and the Australian capability. So, loving the event so far
What makes this event so unique?
What we looked for when we were choosing which event to have a presence at was, was it really a globally focused event? Was it just gonna be regionally focused? Did it have the right mix of government talking heads, policymakers, and then industry making the operationalizing all the government and the policy decisions so. We felt that this event had the right mix of attendees and the right target audiences for the Australian industry and for the Australian capabilities.
What is the biggest takeaway from the event?
From Austrade’s perspective, we’re really focused on making commercial connections for the companies and commercial connections for the investment opportunities in Australia. We’ve had a lot of interest from the European market, but also some of the global representatives who have traveled to this event for investing in large scale projects in Australia or embedding Australian technology in their projects here in Europe. So I think the commercial connections that we’ve been able to make has been the best part so far.
What is your key message to audiences world-wide?
I think what we wanna get across is that Australia is far away, but, actually, the distance isn’t a barrier to hydrogen trade or investment and there really are ways to engage with us and ways to engage with our hydrogen ecosystem that surmount any difficulties you have by distance.
So, we’re here. We’re listening. We’re trying to partner. And we’re ready for business.
Produced by the Sustainable Energy Council in partnership with the Port of Rotterdam, the City of Rotterdam and the Province of Zuid Holland, the global event welcomes 8000 industry professionals, 170+ Speakers, 350 Exhibitors and 50 sponsors to share latest news, establish key connections and sign business deals to accelerate the deployment of the hydrogen economy. Register your place among hydrogen pioneers: https://www.world-hydrogen-summit.com/registration/
