Tauranga Chamber of Commerce hopes to give a face, name and voice to the city's small businesses with the launch of its new initiative Small Business Tauranga at Club Mount Maunganui tomorrow morning.

Tauranga Chamber of Commerce chief executive Stan Gregec is expecting a large turnout to Wednesday morning's launch, which invites small business owners of Tauranga to learn what support is available to them.

Tauranga Chamber of Commerce chief executive Stan Gregec.

'Small businesses are such an important part of the business environment here in Tauranga,” says Stan.

'It's about time the chamber recognised that and worked more strongly to give the message that we're well connected with small business and we've got a lot to offer small business.

'We want to start putting a face, name and voice to all the small business owners of Tauranga. We want you to tell us what you want us to be doing.”

The Small Business Tauranga initiative will help by offering small business owners potential government assistance to help them upskill and business advice.

'The other way is that we will help small businesses connect the dots locally. We plug small business into the networks they need to be part of and we provide a whole lot of networking opportunities ourselves.

'There's going to a lot more breakfast type events for small businesses we'll be visiting the small business rather than expecting them to come to us.”

Tomorrow's launch will also include the announcement of Minister for Small Business Craig Foss' visit to Tauranga next month. The minister will be in Tauranga to talk about specific ways in which the government is supporting the small business sector at the moment.

The chamber will also announce its joint venture with NZ Business Market – a pop up market for small businesses – which will be held in Tauranga on a regular basis.