Mid-West Small Business Centre gets results

The Small Business Centre Mid-West in Geraldton has posted some impressive results for the first quarter of 2006.

In his address this morning to the Mid-West SBC, Small Business Minister Norm Marlborough said that since the new network came into operation on January 1 this year, the SBC Geraldton had registered 166 new business clients, with 114 existing businesses using the service.

"These are outstanding results, proving that the SBC Mid-West is delivering much valued services to new and existing businesses," Mr Marlborough said.

"In addition, 25 jobs have been created in this first quarter with the centre's assistance."

A total of 148 people attended SBC workshops during the quarter, including 93 people attending the 'Retail Today' workshops in March.

"The excellent results for the Mid-West SBC indicate that our new better-funded network is already reaping benefits for the region," the Minister said.

The State Government increased recurrent core funding to the SBC network this year by 24 per cent to $2.83million.

Of the 26 SBCs in the network across Western Australia, 74 per cent of the program's funding is allocated to the 19 SBCs in regional WA.

Overall, funding for the central zone has increased from $540,000 under the old Business Enterprise Centre model to $634,800 this year.

Mr Marlborough identified the current skills shortage as one of the key issues facing small business in WA.