Page 1801 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 2 May 2012
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One aspect of the brand needs to be making our city an even more attractive place for new business investment. That is a way of telling outsiders that the city is open for business and a key to this is making it easier for business to move quickly through the process to set up or expand their operations in the city. That is why we have created a dedicated investment unit to support new entrants and to help existing businesses leverage business opportunities beyond the border.
The government recognises that innovation is the foundation of economic growth and competitiveness. The government is committed to positioning Canberra as an innovation hub. We are creating a climate that supports those who take risks and who, in doing so, create the firms and technologies of tomorrow. A key part of this is ensuring strong partnerships between government, business and educational institutions, and we are ensuring that there are institutional arrangements in place to allow these institutions to work together.
I will outline just a few of the initiatives contained within the strategy: the expansion of the InnovationConnect program to further support early stage business innovation and to assist entrepreneurs to commercial and create value from innovations. We are providing new funding for clean technology and sustainability-oriented companies and new funding for major proposals on new innovation infrastructure. We are funding a feasibility study into the creation of the best practice business incubator. As Ms Porter has indicated, one I am particularly pleased to support is the creation of the my digital city innovation prize, a prize to encourage interested Canberrans in the development of new digital government services. We will create the global connect program as a single portal for various trade development activities supported by government and, importantly, provide an additional $500,000 investment in the Canberra business development fund.
There is no doubt that the emerging clean economy which is driven by both national and local policies around climate change offers major opportunities for enterprise development and economic diversification. Canberra’s knowledge economy, which is underpinned by a strong research sector, innovation, investment and entrepreneurialism, is well placed to realise these opportunities. In concert with our broader sustainability agenda and business development program environment, we will provide new business opportunities to grow the clean economy. This is particularly going to be implemented by providing a new funding system for clean technology or sustainability companies under the InnovationConnect program. We will place a new emphasis on private sector investment facilitation which will help ACT capability in clean technology, particularly to connect with financial flows and global capability. We will provide additional funding under the InnovationConnect strategic opportunities to leverage new innovation infrastructure including in clean technology. Ultimately, our aim is to harness knowledge to drive innovation and business growth and to ensure that our business community is highly collaborative, connected, sustainable and able to make Canberra a preferred location for clean businesses to operate.
The business development strategy is about fostering growth, further diversification of the territory economy and the creation of jobs. It is pleasing to note that the most
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