Export Partnership Program

The Hon. P. CAICA (Colton) (14:09): My question is to the Minister for Investment and Trade. Can the minister advise the house what support is offered to South Australian exporters?

The Hon. M.L.J. HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite—Minister for Investment and Trade, Minister for Small Business, Minister for Defence Industries, Minister for Veterans' Affairs) (14:09): I thank the member for Colton for his question; there are a lot of exporters living in the electorate of Colton. That is why the South Australian government is committed to supporting and growing South Australia's trade programs and creating jobs. Official data shows around 65,000 jobs relate to exports, and we aim to increase that number. In this year's budget, we allocated $19.4 million to trade and investment. As part of the Mid-Year Budget Review, the Treasurer announced an additional $10 million to boost exports and jobs and $1.7 million extra for the Export Partnership Program.

The EPP is an important program for business which has been designed in response to reduced uptake in the last two years of the former Gateway Business Program and resulting budget underspends. Enhancements this government has made to the program include reducing the minimum turnover threshold requirement from $150,000 to $100,000 to increase the eligibility for newer or born global businesses, doubling the amount of funds available to individual companies from $25,000 to $50,000, and allowing companies to apply for funding multiple times until they reach $50,000 to mirror the changing nature of exporting.

The program helps companies access the right tools and supports them to grow and build international networks that can often be financially challenging to access. Grants may be used to support coaching, training and market intelligence and mentoring in order to plan for international opportunities so that they can build their export capability. Since the introduction of the new, more flexible program, the EPP has been an overwhelming success and is oversubscribed every round, with 147 applications received across the first three rounds and over $1.2 million offered to successful applicants.

The scale of the response demonstrates a growing appetite in the small to medium enterprise sector to grasp the opportunities made available to companies through our engagement strategies with China, India and South-East Asia. Due to the demand of this program and enhanced competitiveness demonstrated, the assessment panel has had to rank applications before distributing available funding as fairly and efficiently as possible, but that has not impacted on the achievements of recipients of funds.

An example of the impact of the EPP can be highlighted through the success of Hartwig Flying School. Hartwig Flying School is a former recipient of the EPP that was successful in being awarded a $20,000 marketing grant for the purposes of international marketing. The marketing grant was used to attract Vietnam Airlines and the Vietnamese Civil Aviation Authority to consider the school as being one of five in Australia to be accredited to train 100 cadets annually, at a training cost of $152,000 per cadet.

They were successful in that accreditation, which would mean a minimum average placement of 20 cadets and a further nine cadets from their 2015 backlog. If they achieve a 30 per cent success rate with the current Vietnam Airlines cadets, this will bring $6.7 million per annum into South Australia that is new money for flight training costs alone.

Hartwig Flying School used the remainder of their grant to create a special website zone for cadets who chose their own school to attend out of the five, including a dedicated professional video and Vietnamese translation and subtitles of the site. That is why the facts prove the point: businesses are on the record praising the EPP and every cent available has been allocated, with more to come out of round 4, as has been recently closed.