That was the finding from the Commonwealth Bank’s 2018 Regional Business Insights report. 

The report, released on Wednesday, showed that 52 per cent of Tasmanian businesses surveyed believed they were in a position to grow their company, opposed to 49 per cent nationally, while 24 per cent of respondents said strong industry performance provided opportunities. 

The biggest current challenge for Tasmanian businesses surveyed in the report was finding skilled staff, followed by government regulations and the high costs of essential goods. 

“The most exciting finding [from the report] is the level of growth opportunities,” Commonwealth Bank executive general manager for regional and agribusiness banking Grant Cairns said.

“When you get under what’s driving that, there’s really 3 big factors nationally  – strong market conditions in the demand for Australian produce, growing populations into regional Australia and real investment in regional infrastructure, which is having a flow-on effect to construction and engineering sectors in particular. 

“I think the Tasmanian economy is benefiting from a combination of increased tourism, demand for property and most importantly for the demand in Tasmanian produce.”

The report also provided an innovation index after taking into account 15 "core drivers of innovation”, according to Mr Cairns. 

Mr Cairns said one of the key components of the index was whether or not businesses rewarded innovative behaviour in the workplace. 

“What was also really encouraging to see was the increase in the innovation index over the last 12 months from 25.5 to 32.2 nationally,” he said. 

“In essence that is suggesting that businesses are more innovative when you look at measuring innovation across the 15 core drivers.

“I think businesses...are constantly tapping into innovation and are really leaning on their employees’ creativity and using innovation as a part of the formal appraisal process.”