Australia's resource-rich Pilbara to undergo transformation away from reliance on mining

Australia's mineral-rich Pilbara region is to undergo an economic restructure to move away from the reliance on the resource sector, the Western Australia government announced on Wednesday.

"The Pilbara still contributes 36 percent of [Australia's] exports, which is substantial, but increasingly going forward we want to look for diversification opportunities," Western Australia Regional Development Minister Terry Redman told Australia's national broadcaster.

"Some of that lies in agriculture, there's some agriculture opportunities in the hinterland with some of the mine dewatering projects that are in existence.

"Further development of tourism, we have some fantastic rock art and of course looking at other economic developments particularly in energy."

Redman launched the new blueprint for the region at a development and investment conference in Karatha on Wednesday, which also seeks to triple the region's population by 2050.

Redman acknowledges the 200,000 target is ambitious given people are leaving the region on the back of the resources downturn.

The WA government had previously sought to create two "hubs" at Karratha and Port headland in the resource-rich Pilbara region of 50,000 residents each by 2035, however that target is still short at 68,000 people for the entire region. Endi