The development of indigenous industry is one of the major priorities of my Department, and in this context the provision of appropriate seed or early stage development capital is vital to the ultimate success of many fledgling companies.
I note that the Deputy asks whether further incentives might be provided to those wishing to invest in seed companies and I believe the Deputy's question recognises that a number of incentives already exist to facilitate investment in seed type ventures. In this regard I would mention the following; the 1993 Finance Act widened the scope of the business expansion scheme to provide a refund of a specified number of years income tax already paid by an individual who sets up and takes employment in a new qualifying business. The business must be set up with the intention to carry on BES qualifying trading operations and must otherwise comply with the requirements of the BES. This new relief is known as the seed capital scheme.
The business expansion scheme has and continues to be a substantial contributor towards the provision of seed and early stage capital. This is evidenced by the fact that since the inception of the scheme in 1984 and up to the end of tax year 1994-95, 1,017 of the 2,001 investments made, that is just over half, were for sums of less than £50,000.
The countrywide network of county enterprise boards have responsibility for promoting enterprise in their local areas by the provision, among other things, of grant support to individuals and local community groups to assist the establishment and development of commercially viable small enterprise projects
Although not strictly seed capital, the access to finance scheme was launched in August and will, I am sure, be of considerable financial benefit to many early stage ventures. Under this scheme, just over £200 million in loan finance is available to SME's at a very competitive fixed interest rate of 6.5 per cent. The minimum loan is £20,000 and the duration of the loans will be seven years. This is the successor to a previous scheme administered by ICC under which £100 million in low interest loans was lent to SME's.