The following message is from National Reconstruction Fund Corporation (NRFC) CEO David Gall, published in this week’s NRFC newsletter. It outlines the Australian Government’s response to recent events in the Middle East and the resulting market disruptions, including new support for logistics and manufacturing businesses across the freight, fuel, plastics and fertiliser industries.
Supporting logistics and manufacturing via the Economic Resilience Program
The purpose of this edition is to share with you how the NRFC is playing its part in the national response to recent events in the Middle East that have led to market disruptions impacting businesses across Australia.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese recently announced that $1 billion of the NRFC’s $15 billion allocation would be made available as an Economic Resilience Program, to provide zero interest loans to Australian businesses impacted by the current global situation.
Since that announcement, our team has been working hard to create the program we are opening today, recognising the critical need for providing support and responding to the urgency of the situation for many businesses.
The program has been designed to immediately target areas of the economy where business needs are urgent and acute. For this reason it is aimed at logistics and manufacturing businesses in the freight, fuel, plastics, and fertiliser industries.
The program has two distinct pathways through which logistics and manufacturing businesses in freight, fuel, plastics, and fertiliser industries can access support through zero interest loans if they are materially impacted by market disruption:
- Zero interest loans of up to $5 million will be provided by banks to impacted logistics and manufacturing businesses who have annual turnover of less than $100 million.
- Zero interest loans will be provided directly by the NRFC where an eligible business has turnover of more than $100 million or is seeking a loan of more than $5 million.
This program has been designed with the participation of leading Australian banks to enable us to deploy loans at speed to the customers who need them. At a time such as this, many business owners will already be in contact with their bank and we view banks as being well placed to understand the needs of their customers.
By deploying capital quickly, in the form of zero interest loans, our intention is not only to support good businesses who need it but to keep Australia’s industries moving, and secure and scale critical production activities. That’s good for the economy and very much in line with the national interest.
The bank-administered part of the program will focus on helping businesses defray the costs associated with rising prices or repair economic damage caused by market disruptions.
The part of the program directly administered by the NRFC will also have these aims but will additionally be available to assist businesses involved in critical sovereign supply chains to increase production in the national interest.
The intention at this stage is for the program to be open for loan applications for six months, with the term of zero interest loans administered by banks to be up to two years.
This newsletter features links to a new section of our website, where you can find information about the program’s intent, as well as eligibility guidelines and contact details for participating banks. For business owners falling outside of the parameters for the bank-administered program there is also a webform you can fill out to apply directly to the NRFC.
We have also created a Frequently Asked Questions document that, we hope, helps businesses better understand how the program will work, whether they might be eligible, and how to apply.
I encourage any business owner who thinks they may be eligible for the bank-administered part of the program to get in touch with their participating bank to discuss eligibility. Banks initially participating in the program are ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank, Westpac, Bendigo Bank, and Bank of Queensland. Additional lenders may be added to this list over time.
At times of market disruption we understand that supporting good businesses who are doing it tough is good for the economy and good for the nation. We are looking forward to doing that through the program we have opened today.
David Gall
NRFC CEO
David Gall will be in Geelong next week to speak at GMC’s Technology & Innovation Summit, 29-30 April.