Australian new business growth among world’s best: Report

Australia is performing strongly when it comes to new business start-ups, with the nation recording the third highest number of new ventures among the world’s G8 economies, according to a new report.

The research, conducted by accountancy firm UHY, found that Australia ranked sixth overall in the 19 countries that UHY operates, which includes the G8 and the emerging powerhouses of Brazil, Russia, India and China – collectively known as BRIC.

Using new business registration figures from the past five years, UHY found that Australia recorded a compound 6.8% increase in start-ups, well above the 0.4% growth of non-BRIC countries.

During the 2009-10 financial year, Australia’s performance was even better, with a 14.7% increase in start-ups, despite many countries around the world struggling with the impact of the GFC.

Among the G8 nations, only France and Russia have a higher start-up rate than Australia over the past five years, while our growth rate was 13% higher than the heavy hitting economies of the USA and Japan.

Although the figures show that Australia is doing comparatively well in the world, they are tempered by ASIC figures released today that reveal that 2011 was the worst year on record for corporate insolvencies, with 10,481 Australian companies collapsing.

Rowan Wallace, business advisory specialist with UHY Haines Norton Australia, says: “Australia has been largely insulated from the financial crisis which has cut funding lifelines to small businesses in so many other industrialised nations.”

“Coupled with the natural resources boom, the Australian economy continues to be resilient to global pressures, but that is not to say more could be done to boost our business competitiveness.”

“As ever taxes and red tape are the major concerns small businesses have.

“A successful new business growth policy can be found in France – one of the best performing countries in the study.”

“It saw a sizeable increase in new business creation following the introduction of business tax exemptions for the first two years for small business start-ups.”