| Napier City Council just Napier City.” “What we’ve accomplished the most over the last six months is improved collaboration in economic development between the five Hawke’s Bay councils,” he continues. “We’re more effective as a collective than as individuals. Instead of competing with each other, we’re working together, and it’s really producing results.” For example, the local councils and BusinessHawke’s Bay recently initiated a targeted industry study as part of the development of a regional Business Attraction Strategy. According to James, the study will provide “real empirical evidence” as to which businesses are legitimate candidates for relocation or expansion into the Hawke’s Bay region. “Before I camehere, thebiggest announcement they had in recent times in the regional development space was that Kiwibank was relocating their business centre to Hastings,” he recalls. “So when I came to town, I asked, ‘Can the region support additional call centres that may wish to come here? From a regional business promotion strategy, can we validate targeting additional call centres as an option for future growth? Is that the sector we should be focusing all our efforts on?’ Maybe so, and we’re going through the process now of actually doing some real studies
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTYzNTg=