The Federal Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science Christopher Pyne has announced that $30 million in additional funding has been allocated to the Government’s ‘Next Generation Manufacturing Investment Programme’.
The funding programme was established to subsidise capital investment in manufacturing in South Australia and Victoria. It is designed, among other things, to assist manufacturing businesses affected by the end of Australian car manufacturing by 2017 to establish or expand new ‘high-value manufacturing’ projects.
Whether a manufacturing project is ‘high-value’ is assessed by the Department on a case-by-case basis, having regard to the eligibility of the applicant and the merits of the applicant’s project.
Eligibility criteria for grant funding is set out here.
Among other things, applicants must be trading Australian companies for whom manufacturing is the main part of their business. The projects must take place in South Australia or Victoria to be eligible for grant subsidies.
The merit criteria are:
- The level of net economic benefit that will be achieved by your project;
- The extent to which your project represents a new or expanded high value activity by your business; and
- The value for money offered by grant funding for your project.
Grants are now available under Round 2 of the programme, until 18 April 2016, which range from $500,000 to $2.5 million. The amount of the grant is capped at up to one third of total project costs.
Businesses registered under the Automotive Transformation Scheme are not eligible for funding under the programme.