Improving small business skills, strengthening innovation and leveraging new export opportunities must be the priority of governments to keep small business competitive and create jobs in Ballarat and across Victoria.
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These are the key findings of the recently released VECCI Small Business Taskforce report, "Small business. Big opportunities".
Small business is important business for Ballarat.
Ninety eight per cent of businesses in Ballarat are small. Though small in size, they are big on innovation, major employers and key drivers of economic activity, investment and trade.
With strong growth and further opportunity in Ballarat's health and community services, tourism, education and ICT sectors, governments must do more to ensure local small businesses play a greater role in the success.
VECCI's Small Business Taskforce has developed a series of policy recommendations to drive further small business growth and success through 2015 and beyond.
The report outlines priority areas for policymakers including reduced red tape and cuts to direct business costs, improved small business access to competitively priced finance and new initiatives to raise the skills of regional small business operators and their workforces.
Governments must also work harder to help more Ballarat small businesses access government purchasing and more effectively leverage public and private sector partnerships, for example by ensuring that major projects detail the level of value-add activities to be sourced from regional areas.
In light of growth opportunities for Ballarat presented by the Asian Century and recently signed Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), it is vital that more regional small businesses get into exporting.
The report's priority areas include:
Skills: Support the skills growth of small business workforces and management.
Costs: Lower small business direct and indirect costs.
Exports: Get more small businesses into overseas markets.
Innovation: Encourage more small business innovation and entrepreneurship.
Finance: Improve small business access to competitively priced finance.
Procurement: Provide small business with greater opportunity to sell goods and services to government.
We seek a commitment from both state and federal governments to make small business a priority by taking up the recommendations contained in our agenda.
Please visit vecci.org.au for more details of the report's recommendations and contact us at policy@vecci.org.au for further information.
