Funding boost to back Australian exporters

The Morrison Government is providing an additional $65.5 million to help Australian businesses grow internationally.

Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment Dan Tehan said the Budget provided additional funding for the Export Market Development Grants (EMDG) program to support small and medium sized businesses to receive up to 50 percent of their total marketing expenses.

“The Budget delivers the next stage of our plan to grow the economy and create jobs to get Australia through COVID-19 and the recession it created,” Mr Tehan said.

“We are backing Australian businesses to succeed internationally, creating new jobs and businesses in Australia.

“To assist exporters, the first tranche payment has been lifted to $100,000 for this financial year. This is a significant increase and is the highest first tranche payment in over 20 years, and from the $40,000 first tranche payment over the past five years.

“This high $100,000 first tranche payment was designed to provide exporters with the earliest possible cash flow boost. Given this and the strong demand for EMDG assistance, it is not expected there will be a second tranche payment available for the 2019-20 grant year.

“Our Government provided more than $192 million to more than 4,000 Australian businesses to support their exporting activities through the EMDG program in 2019-20. These businesses employed more than 70,000 people and generated around $4.3 billion in export income.

Austrade continues to work with stakeholders to design and deliver a streamlined EMDG experience from application through to receipt of milestone payments. The release of the draft 2021 EMDG Guidelines for comment is the next step in delivering on these reforms.

For further information on the draft 2021 EMDG Guidelines and how to provide comments, go to www.austrade.gov.au/EMDG.