Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Information

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) is one of Australia's enduring institutions. It is a venerable organisation with more than a century of history serving the interests of business. It is an institution that has played an enormous part in the shaping of Australia, not only in economic but in social and cultural terms. The history of the chamber movement in Australia dates back 178 years to 5 June 1826 when the Sydney Chamber of Commerce was first established. This does not long follow the establishment of chambers in Great Britain with the first chamber of commerce in the English-speaking world being founded on the island of Jersey in 1768, then in Glasgow, Dublin and Belfast in 1783, Edinburgh and Leeds in 1785, Manchester in 1794, Birmingham, Greenock and Plymouth in 1813 and London not until 1881. The Association of British Chambers of Commerce (now the British Chambers of Commerce) was established in 1860. However, it should be noted that the International Chamber of Commerce (of which ACCI is a member) recognises that the Marseilles Chambre de Commerce, founded in 1599, was the first such business organisation in the world. ACCI is part of that four centuries old tradition of serving the business community. With various false starts it is known that the Adelaide Chamber of Commerce was created in 1839, the Melbourne, Hobart and Launceston Chambers of Commerce during the years 1850-51, the Brisbane Chamber of Commerce in 1868, and the Perth Chamber of Commerce in 1890. Chambers of Manufacturers also were established throughout the country including the Victorian Chamber of Manufacturers (1865), the South Australia Chamber of Manufacturers (1869), the New South Wales Chamber of Manufacturers (1885), Chamber of Manufacturers of Western Australia (1890) and the Queensland Chamber of Manufacturers (1911).