Penrith Mayor Greg Davies launched the start of Small Business September in the Penrith Valley at the forum.

The forum participants heard from guest speaker Garth Young, general manager of ASP HealthCare.

The company operates in StMarys, with distributors around Australia and an operation in the United Kingdom. The Fitpack a container holding sterile syringes and providing storage for used syringes was designed by ASP Plastics and introduced in 1990.

Mr Young said Australia now had one of the lowest transmission rates of HIV in the world. ``Many parts of the United States are now starting to catch up,'' he said.

The company exports its products to many countries, with Mr Young estimating a container-load of products leaves Australia every two to three weeks.

He stressed the importance of patent protection, standards adherence and understanding the market. He said the company organised its shifts around school hours for their staff and that they didn't have a huge warehouse as they could manufacture to order.

TradeStart manager and export advisor Lance Scoular said a lot of people would think that with the current economic climate and the subprime mortgage crisis that it might not be a good time to export but he made reference to the late writer Peter Drucker who said organisations could gain a competitive advantage in turbulent times.

Mr Scoular said there was no right or wrong answer but suggested now was a good time to do the research.

He said there was Federal and State government help available for those who were thinking of exporting, including research and development grants.

Details: Department of State and Regional Development's Small Business unit, smallbusi nessmonth.nsw.gov.au.