Hon John Banks
Minister for Small Business

30 August 2013

Single Business Number Good News For SMEs

Small Business Minister John Banks today welcomed the Government’s progress towards the introduction of a unique New Zealand Business Number for each of the 550,000 businesses on the Companies Register.

“A single business number will bring benefits to small business by making it easier to connect to government systems. In time it will improve productivity and enhance New Zealand’s competitiveness in global markets,” Mr Banks said.

“SME owners continue to say that transactions with government takes too much time away from their core business activities. This initiative will pave the way for businesses to provide information more easily and securely at a single point, and reduce the need to repeatedly provide the same information to different government agencies.

“Since the Small Business Development Group met for the first time in February this year, it has given a lot of feedback to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment on this initiative, just as their predecessors the Small Business Advisory Group did in their report to government in 2012.

“I am pleased to see that SMEs’ voices are being heard in this important development and we will continue to support its implementation as it is progressed,” Mr Banks said.

ENDS

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