{"id":9946,"date":"2021-01-17T21:29:27","date_gmt":"2021-01-17T21:29:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/?p=9946"},"modified":"2021-01-17T21:29:27","modified_gmt":"2021-01-17T21:29:27","slug":"small-and-regional-businesses-win-big-in-nsw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2021\/01\/17\/small-and-regional-businesses-win-big-in-nsw\/","title":{"rendered":"SMALL AND REGIONAL BUSINESSES WIN BIG IN NSW"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Small, medium and regional businesses are reaping the benefits of the NSW Government\u2019s Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) and Regional Procurement Policy, with the NSW Government spending more money with SMEs and regional businesses.<br \/>\nIn the 12 months since the policy commenced on 1 February 2019, spend with regional suppliers increased by 19.6 per cent or $255 million, while spend with SMEs increased by 3.8 per cent or $337 million from the previous year.<br \/>\nMinister for Finance and Small Business Damien Tudehope said the SME and Regional Procurement Policy was helping family businesses and entrepreneurs to supply goods and services to the NSW Government, often for the first time.<br \/>\n\u201cWe introduced the policy to encourage NSW Government departments to keep SMEs and regional suppliers front of mind when making procurement decisions,\u201d Mr Tudehope said.<br \/>\n\u201cThese businesses are the backbone of their communities and by giving them the opportunity to supply to Government we are helping support sectors hit hard by natural disasters, such as drought, bushfires, floods, as well as COVID-19 in the past year.\u201d<br \/>\nMr Tudehope said the NSW Government engages more than 52,000 SMEs and more than 24,000 regional businesses a year.<br \/>\n\u201cThat means local tradies and other suppliers are picking up Government work and keeping jobs in their local area,\u201d Mr Tudehope said.<br \/>\n\u201cIf we support these businesses to grow, they will support jobs, families and communities as we move towards a post-pandemic NSW.\u201d<br \/>\nThe policy requires Government agencies to first consider buying goods and services from an SME or a regional business for all direct procurements up to $250,000. The Small Business Exemption allows Government agencies to buy directly from small businesses for any purchases up to $50,000 even if there is a mandated whole-of-government contract in place.<br \/>\nVaccari\u2019s Bakery in Griffith, which was started by brothers Glenn and Jason Vaccari and celebrated 25 years in business in July last year, is a regional business that supplies to the NSW Government.<br \/>\n\u201cWe have been selling our bakery products to our local schools for a number of years,\u201d owner Erin Vaccari said.<br \/>\n\u201cWe have about 20 employees and it\u2019s great that the NSW Government is able to support businesses such as ours in regional areas.\u201d<br \/>\nFor more information on the SME and Regional Procurement Policy, go to<a href=\"https:\/\/buy.nsw.gov.au\/policy-library\/policies\/sme-and-regional-procurement-policy\">https:\/\/buy.nsw.gov.au\/policy-library\/policies\/sme-and-regional-procurement-policy<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Small, medium and regional businesses are reaping the benefits of the NSW Government\u2019s Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) and Regional Procurement Policy, with the NSW Government spending more money with SMEs and regional businesses. In the 12 months since the policy commenced on 1 February 2019, spend with regional suppliers increased by 19.6 per cent &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2021\/01\/17\/small-and-regional-businesses-win-big-in-nsw\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;SMALL AND REGIONAL BUSINESSES WIN BIG IN NSW&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nswnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9946\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}