Committee for Sydney & Sydney Airport
The Southern Enterprise Corridor is Sydney’s quiet giant, generating more economic value each year than Parramatta CBD and Adelaide CBD.
We partnered with Sydney Airport and the Committee for Sydney to explore the value in the Southern Enterprise Corridor — a nationally significant economic precinct. This corridor stretches from Sydney Airport and Port Botany in the south, north toward Green Square and is bordered by Tech Central.
The research explored the corridor as:
- one of the most economically significant parts of Sydney and Australia.
- home to a diverse mix of industries that are deeply embedded in place, including freight, logistics, manufacturing, and increasingly innovation.under growing pressure from population, housing demand, and structural shifts in the economy.
We quantified its economic role, analysed industry and land-use change, and assessed emerging pressures from growth, housing and rising land values.
Our work demonstrated that the corridor generates over $33 billion annually, outperforming major CBD economies, and plays a central role in freight logistics, jobs and global connectivity. Its value is in both what it produces and how it connects. South Sydney industrial rents exceed even prime markets in Melbourne. This reflects the population, the airport, the CBD, and scarcity. However, this site value does not capture the broader worth of the land to the rest of the economy. The risk is that this high value will mean “lower value” operations will struggle and face pressures to relocate to more affordable land further west. This can lead to inefficiencies and broader social and environmental impacts. In practice, land needed for operational uses such as freight and logistics is often priced out by competing demands, despite being the preferred location for those activities.
The corridor only makes sense when you view it as part of a broader system. Its strength lies not just in the industries and activities it contains, but in its position in Sydney’s economic geography and its links to global gateways, the city’s core and its innovation districts.
The corridor is important at both ends of the logistics chain — providing port- and airport-proximate land (import/export nodes) and opportunities for last-mile distribution to the CBD, inner east, and metro residents and businesses. Some ~47,000 kt of freight destined for Greater Sydney originating from the corridor. That’s almost a quarter of all freight destined for Greater Sydney, and nearly half of all freight to Sydney’s inner east originates in the corridor.
The research identified a structural shift toward higher-value, more intensive uses, alongside growing pressure on land and infrastructure.
The employment lands have been the subject of strategic plan use planning for over 20 years. The importance of protecting and enhancing employment lands of state significance was identified in the 2005 Metropolitan Strategy, including those around Sydney Airport and Port Botany. The Three Ports SEPP in 2013 included objectives to ensure land around the lease areas is maintained for port-related and industrial uses. Greater Sydney Region Plan – A Metropolis of Three Cities (2018) included objectives to ensure Industrial and urban services land is planned, retained and managed. Land in the SEC was identified in the “Retain and Manage” category. Amendments to Transport and Infrastructure State Environmental Planning Policy (SEPP) 202, introduced amendments requiring the consent authority to consider impacts on port and industrial operations before approving the subdivision of land within the vicinity of NSW’s 3 ports.
The 2025 draft Industrial Lands Action Plan delivered a statewide policy for industrial lands based on the categorisation of areas as state significant, regionally significant, locally significant and other industrial lands. Land in the SEC is categorised as state and regionally significant.
The project elevated the corridor as a “quiet economic giant”, providing a robust evidence base to inform policy and investment. It reinforced the importance of protecting industrial land while highlighting the need for place-based coordinated planning, infrastructure and industry planning to support the efficient use of land.
This work will help shape how this critical part of Sydney’s economy is understood, protected and positioned for future growth. The corridor is not only vital to Sydney’s economic future, but to the performance of the broader metropolitan economy.
Strategic planning for the corridor will benefit the entire city. Its strength lies not just in the industries it supports, but in its strategic location and its national and global connectivity.
