Small business expansion urged

Press, 18 November 1982, Page 15

Small business expansion urged

Determined small businessmen with export potential are the answer to unemployment, according to an Otago business-adviser, Mr Richard Higham. Mr Higham. director of the Business Development Centre at the University of Otago, suggested, however, that the creation of more jobs alone was not the solution to unemployment. The days of full employment were over.

He told the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce yesterday that more jobs could be created only through the expansion of the private sector. because it produced the wealth which, through taxation. supported the Government’s bureaucracy. Of the employers in the private sector, it was the innovative. small-scale,

owner-managers who wanted to “flog their stuff overseas" who provided the most jobs, he said.

Mr Higham quoted an Otago survey, conducted in 1976. which showed that 16,000 people were employed in secondary processing. Of these, more than a third (6000) worked for companies with fewer than 20 staff members. 4500 worked for firms employing between 20 and 100 workers, and the rest (5500). for large companies. Mr Higham said that it fell to the Society of Accountants. the Manufacturers’ Association, the Chambers of Commerce, Enterprise Boards, and Business Development Centres to encourage small businessmen by providing them with international marketing advice.