Austrade announcement on grant amounts for Tier 1, 2, & 3 applicants
In response to over 5000 applications received under the new Export Market Development Grant (EMDG) program, Austrade has announced the annual grant amounts that will be offered to Tier 1,2, and 3 applicants. Needless to say, the exporting community is totally underwhelmed by this latest announcement.
How much will you receive?
The final grant amounts will be determined after Austrade assesses all grant applications. Based on detailed modeling of the final number of applications, applicants should expect to receive up to these grant amounts for each of the years of their grant.
Tier 1 – $15,000 per financial year
Tier 2 – $23,000 per financial year
Tier 3 – $35,000 per financial year
The new EMDG was designed to bring “certainty of funding” to applicants by introducing the lodgement of an export plan and budgeted expenses ahead of the year the marketing activities were going to take place. Whilst the certainty of funding remains, the funding itself has been significantly reduced.
Austrade’s “detailed modeling” unfortunately does not take into consideration the following:
- many applicants over-budgeted and applied for the maximum grant to ensure they didn’t limit their potential grant entitlement under their grant agreement;
- the reduced grant funding offered will reduce the timing and quantum of any ambitious export marketing plans/ budgets due to being underfunded;
- some applicants who have been heavily affected by the uncertainty of COVID won’t have the capacity to execute their marketing activities, thus not spending the majority of their intended budget.
Given the above scenarios, the detailed modeling basis is potentially fraught with disaster, and worse still, if the allocated program funding of $150m is under prescribed, the leftover balance will go back into the Government’s consolidated revenue as opposed to being equally distributed to all applicants. This is unlike the prior EMDG program of the last 40 odd years and this we believe is a monumental error in program design.
The Export consultants are lobbying to have this changed but it may take a year or two. Right now, the new policymakers in Canberra aren’t listening.
Once the real numbers are realised perhaps the policymakers will have no choice but to backpedal.
Applications for Round 2 are expected to be lodged prior to the 1st of May 2022. If you are spending money in the 2022/23 financial year on marketing activities to promote your product/service in foreign countries, give us a call; We can help.
The full EMDG announcement can be found here
– Export Market Development Grants EMDG | JAN 2022 –
Services
Ryan can assist with services such as:
- Scope your potential to claim various grant programs
- Assist with the preparation and lodgement of grant applications
- Review or provide a health check on your internally prepared grant applications
- Establish record-keeping practices as required under various grant programs
- Provide prepayment loans against future cash refunds under the R&D Tax Incentive
- Keeping industry informed on all new Government policy and grant initiatives
Don’t hesitate to give us a call.