Small marine businesses hit hard by the global financial crisis are beginning to bounce back, according to a report by the Ministry of Transport.

Small New Zealand maritime businesses employing up to 19 people and engaged in fishing, off-shore aquaculture, and water transport are small but starting to get bigger, says Maritime NZ director Keith Manch.

Small Maritime businesses are growing says Government report. Photo: Chris Callinan.

The sector declined until three or four years ago, then plateaued, and is now slowly rebounding and becoming more corporate.

The report, Business Structures of Small Commercial Maritime Operators, maps changes in small fishing, aquaculture, and water transport businesses from 2000 to 2015.

One of the trends has been a gradual decline in the number of small businesses, while the average number of employees is slowly increasing, though it is still small because most businesses are owner-operators with no staff, says Keith.

There is also a marked increase in businesses registered as limited liability companies, along with a corresponding drop in individual ownership and partnerships.

Some important characteristics as at February 2015 include:

• Small businesses made up 98 per cent of all fishing, aquaculture, and water transport businesses
• While small businesses are on average getting bigger, 75 per cent were still operating with no employees at all and 20 per cent with one to five employees
• There are around 1860 small businesses and they employed 1320 people
• The fishing industry accounted for 68 per cent of small maritime businesses (1269) and 50 per cent of their employees (660)
• 30 large businesses made up 2 per cent of the sector but 56 per cent of employees (1780).

The report is based on data provided by Statistics NZ for specific industry codes covering fishing, offshore aquaculture, water freight transport, water passenger transport and other water transport support services.

For the purposes of the report, entities with these industry codes make up the commercial maritime sector.

The upturn comes after the overall number of businesses in the maritime sector dropped by 20.6 per cent from 2283 in 2000 to 1893. The number of businesses in the small commercial marine business sector dropped by 17 per cent from 2247 in 2000 to 1860.

While the total number of employees in the maritime sector has dropped by 21.9 per cent from 3,890 in 2000 to 3,190. The number of employees in the small commercial marine business sector dropped by 11 per cent from 1480 in 2000 to 1320.