TRENTON – Legislation sponsored by Senator Fred Madden (D-Gloucester, Camden) that would officially create the New Jersey Business Action Center cleared the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee today.
“This is one more simple, common sense measure that can be taken to assist our small business community in New Jersey,” said Madden. “By expanding the scope of the Business Action Center, we can provide our small businesses with a depth of knowledge and insight that may not have otherwise been available to them.”
The bill, S-3079, is also co-sponsored by Senator Steve Oroho (R-Sussex, Hunterdon, Morris). Though the Center was created last year, it was never officially done so by statute. Doing so now will help codify much of the work the Center has and will continue to do. The Center serves as a liaison to the business community and provides information on: state taxes; permits, licenses, certificates, other governmental approvals; state regulations; available commercial real estate, and international trade.
Additionally, the legislation would expand the services that the Center must provide, including information on industry trends and forecasts, market size and sales, market demographics and psychographics, market research reports, potential market niches, prospective partners and resources, and marketing lists and leads and other information as requested by the businesses. The Center would be required to provide this information in a confidential manner and would ban disclosure of any information acquired about a business during the course of providing such confidential business consulting services.
Previous economic growth legislation sponsored by Senator Madden is already starting to have a positive impact in New Jersey. His bill, S-2370, passed earlier in the year, enhanced the existing Business Retention and Relocation Assistance Grant Program, providing the incentives that helped keep Church & Dwight here in New Jersey.
S-3079 now heads to the full Senate.
