Facebook is building a sales team to run its new Australian headquarters in Sydney, according to the Australian newspaper Australian IT.

The team is being headed by Paul Borrud, previously the company’s VP of US West Coast Sales. Although Borrud didn’t share information on the size or composition of his team (Australia IT says Facebook is looking to hire a staff of 10 for now), he did comment on plans to generate advertising revenue from Australian agencies and advertisers via engagement ads (to the right of the Home page) and performance ads (to the right of user profiles).

“We think there’s a great opportunity to work with agencies and advertisers who want a different type of relationship with their customers,” Borrud said. “With Facebook, businesses have the ability to go beyond simple click-throughs and interact with users through friend networks and all aspects of Facebook including applications and pages.”

Facebook is building its Sydney sales office in hopes of helping advertisers connect with its 5.7 million users in Australia and 750,000 users in New Zealand. Early-bird opportunities still exist for marketers and developers who want to engage this audience on Facebook before more businesses and entrepreneurs in the region catch on.

The office is Facebook’s first in the region. Last October, Facebook announced its European operations would be headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, and the company has been posting sales positions in Sydney, Paris, London, Toronto, New York, and Atlanta for most of the year. Currently, Facebook lists sales openings in Sydney, Paris, Toronto, Italy, Spain, Dublin, London, Germany, Stockholm, Los Angeles, and Palo Alto.