ABS Counts of Australian Businesses, including Entries and Exits (CABEE) just released

The annual ABS publication Cat.8165.0, in what ABS terms as "CABEE" has just been released. It provides he latest headline statistics on number of businesses in various sizes in various categories. I am still going through it at the moment. But it is a bit of shock that all States and Territories posted decreases in number of actively trading businesses, going against the trend for last few years. Will post more results later.

My home State, Victoria went from 551,111 number of businesses in June 2012 to 538,775 in June 2013 - a -2.2% decrease (lower than the national average of -2.9%). The worst happened in Queensland, down by -3.3% to 414,438, total number even less than that achieved in June 2009 (420,974).

New release from ABS on characteristics of small business 2011-12

Another major release on small business stats from the ABS - Cat.8167.0

http://bit.ly/1h6ZPIZ

 It covers a large range of characteristics which deserve our attention, including:

• Business Structure and Arrangements
• Business Markets and Competition
• Business Finance
• Business Use of Information Technology
• Business Innovation
• Business Performance
• Barriers to Innovation and General Business Activities or Performance
• Skills

Datacubes are available for download if you wish to do some analysis.

When the word productivity appears in nearly every discussion on business development, there is one key message that ABS wishes you to know:

Businesses that pursued innovation were more than twice as likely to have improved their productivity than those that didn't.

Latest data on Australian businesses - Counts of Australian Businesses, including Entries and Exits

Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has recently released data cubes from Cat. 8165.0 Counts of Australian Businesses, including Entries and Exits, which enable me to determine the number of small businesses by State, by employment size, by industry and by statistical area (as at end June 2012).

Here is my first cut analysising what is happening on small business counts in my home state (Victoria).

• As at June 2012, there were 551,220 actively trading businesses in Victoria, representing 25.7 per cent of all businesses in Australia (2,141,280).

• There has been a net increase of 8,868 actively trading businesses in Australia (June 2012 compared with June 2011), due to an increase in new registrations, as well as decline in the exit rate of businesses

• The largest increase in businesses for a single state, as highlighted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, is Victoria (7,291), among which 6,794 are small businesses.

• While NSW (3,849), ACT (403) and NT (165) also recorded increases, there are States posted a decline: Queensland (-2,032), WA (-771) and Tasmania (-181).

Changes in number of businesses (June 2012 compared with June 2011)

• Victoria    7,291
• NSW    3,849
• ACT    403
• currently unknown    170
• NT    165
• Queensland    -2,032
• WA    -771
• Tasmania    -181
• SA    -26
• Australia (net increase)    8,868

The figure of 551,220 represents businesses of all sizes, with the breakdown by size of employment as follows:

• Non-employing micro-business     336,149 
• Employing micro-business (1-4 employed persons)    135,249
• Other employing small business (5-19)    58,292
• Medium business (20-199)    19,977
• Large business (200+)    1,630
• TOTAL    551,220

• As at June 2012, ABS confirmed Victoria had more than half a million actively trading small businesses (529,690). The ABS defines a small business as a business employing less than 20 people.*

*The ABS defines a small and medium enterprise (SME) as a business employing 199 or less people. As at June 2012, the total number of Victorian SMEs is 549,667.

• When compared with June 2011 (522,896), there has been an increase of 6,794 small businesses, representing an average annual growth of 1.3%.

• Small business is an essential part of the Victorian economy, representing 96 per cent of all businesses and supplying 47 per cent of private sector jobs. Around 28 per cent of small businesses are located in regional and rural Victoria.

• Small businesses can be found in almost every industry and sector.

• The top five sectors with the greatest numbers of small businesses are:

o construction (87,857 - 16.6 per cent of all small businesses);
o professional, scientific and technical services (65,353 - 12.3 per cent);
o rental, hiring and real estate services (55,494 - 10.5 per cent);
o agriculture, forestry and fishing (43,770 - 8.3 per cent); and
o financial and insurance services (43,694 - 8.2 per cent).

How reliable are those lists of Australian exporters commercially available?

I have been given a task in my day job lately to locate or more precisely compile a list of top Victorian exporters. In fact, not just one list, if possible lists of Victorian exporters by destination, by industry sector and by size of business, in partcular SME exporters.

So far I have managed to locate two sites which can provide a list on demand. One is operated by JPM Media. Fairly expensive. The other is less so - operated by australianexporters.net

But one issue I don't have an aswer is how reliable are those data? It seems that exporters can just fill in a form and then after a few steps, it will be listed there.

Can someone who have used these services can share their experiences?