Tara Cheyne is ACT Minister for Business and Better Regulation.

Today, the Australian Bureau of Statistics has released data on the counts of Australian businesses, which shows that there are more businesses in the ACT than ever before.

Despite a challenging year including a prolonged lockdown due to COVID-19, an additional 2,419 new businesses have been created in the ACT in 2021-22, a 7.7 per cent increase – the second highest in the country of any state or territory.

These new businesses are creating more jobs in the ACT, contributing to the Government’s efforts to grow our employment base to 250,000 local jobs by 2025.

During the lockdown in 2021, the ACT and Australian Governments jointly funded more than $326 million in support to businesses through the Business Support Grants, this provided grants to more than 11,000 businesses. The ACT Government provided more than $13 million through the Small Business Hardship Scheme supporting more than 2,500 businesses.

The ACT Government continues to support businesses through the Canberra Business Advice and Support Service and targeted measures to support the recovery of the tourism industry.

As our economic recovery progresses, the ACT Government continues to look for more opportunities to make it easier for businesses to open and grow. To this end, the Better Regulation Taskforce that was established to review regulatory and process changes and business settings in the current environment is working with local business to implement additional reforms.

Since its two-year program was established in June, the Taskforce has delivered the Automatic Mutual Recognition of occupational licences on 1 July 2022 and a new supplier landing page and guide to doing business with the ACT Government to make it simpler and easier for businesses offering services.