Austrade waives fees for disaster-stricken SMEs

Austrade is waiving its fees for SMEs affected by the recent spate of natural disasters, offering free advice in a bid to limit the impact on Australia’s international business operations.

Austrade is the Federal Government’s trade and investment development agency, delivering trade and investment advice and assistance to businesses through a network of overseas and domestic offices.

The agency recently announced it will assist SMEs that bore the brunt of flooding, cyclones or bushfires across Queensland, Victoria, NSW, WA and Tasmania.

Austrade normally charges SMEs $190 an hour for tailored advice, but eligible businesses will have this fee waived to assist them in recovery. The assistance will be provided for 12 months.

Although there is no specific eligibility criteria, SMEs may be eligible if their headquarters are located in disaster-affected areas, if their produce is sourced from those areas or if their supply chains have been disrupted.

An Austrade spokesperson says SMEs are encouraged to contact Austrade to undergo an initial evaluation.

“Businesses will then be asked to send an email describing their international businesses, how they have been affected and the nature of any assistance required,” he says.

“The assessor will take it from there. The nature of any assistance will depend on each individual business.”

Businesses can then expect to receive a formal acknowledgement of their application within two to three days.

Austrade’s domestic network of specialist Export Advisers and TradeStart Advisers will then coordinate any assistance to eligible SMEs through the agency’s global network.

In the aftermath of the Queensland floods and Cyclone Yasi, the Federal Government announced a string of financial assistance packages including grants for small businesses.

So far, more than 997,000 payments of the Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment have been made, totalling $792.6 million.

The Federal Government has also announced a special one-year levy to offset the cost of the Queensland floods, in a move that has been attacked by the Opposition and industry groups.

It will be in place for the 2011-12 year and will raise $1.8 billion. Reconstruction costs from the floods are estimated to total $5.6 billion.

The levy will be supplemented by up to $3 billion in spending cuts, allowing the Government to fund reconstruction work while honouring its election promise to return the budget to surplus by 2012-13.