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EMDG Newsletter – November 2022

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Everything is going up – except EMDG.

Another email with some fresh news for exporters that has happened today.

Interest rates are rising, cost of living is rising, cost of electricity, export shipping costs and the like.

EMDG is however bucking the trend, going down, not up!!!

You will be sent an email later today from Austrade.

Round 2 Funding Caps.

The Minister and Austrade have set the caps on the maximum grant payments for Round 2 of EMDG.

Round 2 is for those applicants who applied in July/August to seek pre-approval of expenditure for this financial year 2022/2023 and beyond.

The maximum grant amounts by Tier level being:
• Tier 1 $10,000 down from $15,000 in Round 1 a 30% reduction.
• Tier 2 $18,000 down from $24,600 in Round 1 a 27% reduction
• Tier 3 $28,000 down from $36,600 in Round 1 a 23% reduction
• Tier 4 $50,000 down from $90,000 in Round 1 a 44% reduction


The reason behind the decision is simple, EMDG is a demand driven scheme, the demand for funds again exceeding the supply of money (unchanged in the recent budget). It’s a rationing process as per Round 1.

For both Round’s 1 and 2 the maximum grant amount in practice is well below those promulgated in theory for the program.

For Round 2 it will now mean (taking over from Round 1) the lowest maximum payout figure in over 45 plus years of EMDG.

Senator Farrell the current Minister of course has signed off on the above.

It is not his fault at all. He is just dealing with the poor EMDG policy planning, program design and implementation inherited from his predecessor and failure of the changes to the program following on from the 2019 review. Do not get me started again about this, I will never stop.

Two other major points: –

Round 1
There is no change.

You will still be paid are per the caps for that round and your agreement will cover 3 years expect for Tier 1 applicants.

It’s another flaw that two exporters in the same year FY 2022/23 (Round 1 & Round 2) doing the same things and spending the same sort of money will be paid different amounts of EMDG support. Pretty dumb idea to me.

Round 3
There is no change

This is still expected to happen in March 2023.

Other News
The email will also refer you to the Austrade website in terms of some processing stats for the Round 1 Milestone reports and Round 2 grant offers. We of course will manage those things for you.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Regards,
Stuart & team

EMDG Newsletter – October 2022

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We did not send out a newsletter for September. Too busy with application lodgments.

There is a bit to catch up on, so….here we go:

Trade Minister – Senator Don Farrell.
It is a bit late to advise, however, we confirm that Senator Don Farrell is now the current Minister for Trade and Tourism.

Senator Farrell is based in South Australia. He previously held the Shadow Ministry for Tourism.

Senator Farrell has three big challenges on his plate, the trade dispute with China, the stalled Free Trade Agreement with the UK and the EMDG program you are part of.

EMDG as you would be aware has changed over recent years, not what it covers and what it’s trying to do, i.e. helping SME grow their business overseas, but how you apply and the new additional steps to actually get paid.

In my opinion, the previous government undertook to change the program without any real industry consultation, or development of the right support of policy framework for the scheme.

Good idea (maybe!) to change things, but how things have been put in practice has been less than ideal and not that relevant to the exporting community during and post Covid.

The new EMDG process is clunky, involves more initial effort and fails to provide the promised simplicity and certainly to the scheme.

It fails several “pub tests” for sure. Things are getting better as time goes on of course.

Quite correctly, Senator Farrell has already called for an operational review of the scheme which I make comment about in the next section of this newsletter. A step in the right direction.

Operational Rivew of the EMDG program
This was review was announced some months back.

I was able to meet with the report chair Mr. John Angley in Adelaide. I was able to express my views on matters that could be done better – in the main – to process and pay all grant applications sooner than later. I got a fair hearing.

A copy of my written submission and attachments can be accessed via the following link.

EMDG 2022 Operational Review

John has to report back to Minister by next month. I am unsure what we will be advised, if anything.

Major structural changes to EMDG will not be possible until the next 5-year review of the program due in 2024.

EMDG and the Federal Budget being handed down next Tuesday
I do not expect any major announcement about EMDG in next weeks budget. If there is, I will have to eat my hat and send out an additional newsletter on the day.

The previous government had an election policy announcement of a $50M regional EMDG program. I cannot see that happening, being taken over by the current government. I was not a supporter of it in the first place.

Round 1 Applications for expenditure up to June 30th, 2022 – Processing Status
For those applications that were lodged back in November 2021 we had to prepare and lodge “Milestone Reports” (the third step in the grant process) in recent months up to September 30th.

All done and dusted. Only one thrill seeker (Grant you know who you are) leaving it to the last day!

Once your milestone report is processed and assessed you get a letter to say that your grant payment will be paid within 14 days.

This has been changed to “14 working days after assessment”. This has not happened to date with payments taking much longer to hit the bank account than promised, given new systems needed to be developed, well so we are told anyway.

Things are getting better with two large processing runs in the last 2 weeks. About 2/3’s of applicants being told they are going to be paid, with the majority of those now actually paid. Austrade is continuing to process the remaining 1/3 and I would expect most will be done within the next month or so.

Round 2 Applications for Grant Approval for expenditure from July 2022
This is for applications for funding for this financial year and beyond.

These are the applications that were lodged prior to August 17th, the first step in the process.

Austrade have processed about 40% to the grant approval stage to date. They are working through the rest.

No grant offers have been made to date, nor is the capped amount per tier type know as well.

For Round 1 the funding caps were:
Tier 1 Promised $40,000 Actual  $15,000
Tier 2 Promised $80,000 Actual  $24,600
Tier 3 Promised $150,000 Actual $36,600

Last year the announcement of the capped tier levels as above (bad news) was made the day before Xmas, (not what you want in your Xmas stocking!).

I expect for Round 2 it will be sooner, in the coming weeks. We will of course let you know as soon as we can.

Round 3 Applications for Grant Approval for expenditure from July 2023
This is for clients, not already in Rounds 1 or 2. It will cover expenditure from July 1, 2023, and beyond.

The application process (the first step) is stated as to open in March 2023. I do not expect it will be any earlier.

If you have any queries, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

All the best,
Stuart and team

EMDG Newsletter – August 2022

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Everybody has a database and newsletter that they send out to clients.

Sometimes the information means something, sometimes it does not.

This one is of course about EMDG and looming cut-off dates for lodgment to either apply for Round 2 – 2023 grant offer or to submit a milestone report to get your 2022 grant payment – cash in the bank.

Different horses for different courses.

You only need worry about one of the deadlines not both or not all.

If you have already been in contact with us, then this broadcast email it not for you. It’s a whole of database approach to make sure no one misses out.

We explain things in more detail.

EMDG Round 2 – 2023 applications and Beyond

This if you are not already in the EMDG system at this time (i.e. we have lodged an EMDG Round 1 2022 application, see the note below) and you think you will have overseas marketing expenditure this current financial year or in future years, then you need to get your skates on.

If you have not already contacted us, please email/phone us now!

The lodgment date for such applications is 3.30pm SA time (yes that is right) on Wednesday August 17th, 2022.

We are cutting off acceptance of any new application work on Friday 5th of August at 5.00pm.

If you do not lodge an application, you will then have to wait for Round 3 which will cover marketing costs from July 1, 2023 – that is next financial year.

EMDG Round 1 – 2022

This about step 3 of the grant process – the milestone report to get you paid.

We have submitted quite a few already. We are working on many more now and have other clients still to provide us some initial information so we can get started.

An email was sent out by Austrade to you some weeks back telling you to lodge your milestone report. This was bit confusing, as it did not explain things fully. It was sent to everyone, including clients who use a lodgment agent like us.

You will get another one next week or so. In addition, may have just got an invite to an online seminar on the same topic, you can ignore it.

You do not have to lodge your milestone report yourself. That’s what we do as part of our fee.

We must submit your milestone report by Tuesday 30th of August 2022.

Once we have submitted the Milestone report, you will receive an email from EMDG Sydney advising “you will be paid 14 days after receipt and assessment by Austrade”

In reality, you are in fact to get paid “14 days after assessment” by Austrade.

No milestone reports have been paid to date Australia wide. We submitted our 1st milestone report on July 1 and it is still unpaid.

We expect funds to start following in August – fingers crossed.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

Stuart & team