Boost for small businesses

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

FOLLOWING a review of the Government’s Regional Business Partners (RBP) Programme, joint-funders New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE) and Callaghan Innovation will lift their investment on the East Coast and fund a second person to act as a Regional Business Partner for the East Coast.

Activate Tairawhiti chief executive Steve Breen said not only would the extra funding strengthen the competitiveness of local businesses, it would also encourage growth and development.

“In order to gain this additional funding, Activate Tairawhiti demonstrated the size of the opportunity available to government to increase their support to our local businesses, and the benefits to local businesses of taking this up.

“Adding a second Regional Business Partner will significantly increase our ability to engage with more local businesses.”

Mr Breen said the role was being advertised locally and nationally.

“We’ve had strong interest in the role advertised, with applications closing at the end of the month. It’s a stimulating and varied role working directly with businesses covering adoption of new technology, research, finance, capital raising, international market development, and exporting. It’s extremely rewarding being able to support businesses across a range of industries achieve their ambitions, with the flow-on effect of growing our region’s economy.”

Allowing more businesses to growEast Coast RBP Jo Emerre said the move would allow more businesses to grow.

“As the Regional Business Partner for the East Coast, I connect businesses to funding and expertise on a daily basis. With an extra resource, we’ll be able to work with many more businesses to help them grow, and will have more time for follow-up and focus on scalable Callaghan engagement.

“One aspect of the RBP role is providing funding to eligible local businesses through the NZTE Capability Vouchers scheme. $55,000 of NZTE funding was issued to local businesses in the Gisborne/East Coast region in the last six months. This amount was matched by the businesses that received the funding, which means that $110,000 worth of training and development was undergone, in-region.

“Another $45,000 has been allocated by central government to issue by June 30, 2016, so I encourage interested businesses to contact me to find out further details.

“In total, the government has provided us with $40,000 more to distribute than in the last financial year.”

NZTE capability service director Hamish Campbell said the decision followed a review of the programme, which had already benefited 172 small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMEs) on the East Coast, over the last four years.

“As part of the refreshment of the Regional Business Partner programme we reviewed the investment we were making into each of the regions. For Gisborne, this resulted in us lifting the investment so there was the opportunity for Activate Tairawhiti to increase the staffing numbers dedicated to the programme.

“This prioritisation of regional businesses is intended to grow business capability in the regions through enabling a larger number of businesses to access business development support, capability training and R and D expertise.”