Federal Government Announces the Entrepreneurs' Infrastructure Programme

The Federal Government announced the establishment of the Entrepreneurs’ Infrastructure Programme (EIP), with funding of $484.2 million over 5 years. The objective of the EIP is to improve the business capabilities of Australian small to medium enterprises to make them more competitive on the world stage.

The EIP will replace existing programmes such as Enterprise Connect and Commercialisation Australia. Services under the EIP will be divided into three streams: the business management stream, the research connections stream and the commercialising ideas stream. Whilst there will be some funding available to eligible businesses under each of these streams, the focus will be on service provision and advice to assist businesses to build their capabilities. It will have a phased roll-out with some services becoming available under the business management stream from 1 July this year.  

The EIP is one programme accessible under the new Single Business Service Initiative which will provide a single port of call for businesses seeking access to government services. As part of this initiative, the business.gov.au website is being redeveloped and will be re-launched in the coming months.

For further information, please see the attached paper.