MOUNT Gambier City Council will focus on supporting local businesses, building skills and facilitating entrepreneurship and innovation as part of a long-term city growth strategy.
Council’s strategic standing committee has received the Mount Gambier City Growth Strategy 2017-2027, which highlights three industry sectors likely to offer the greatest potential for future growth.
Tourism, events and the arts, agribusiness and health and community services were identified as key industry sectors, while the report stated the city’s economy will be underpinned by growth of existing and new small to medium sized businesses.
The report lists 24 short, medium and longer term recommendations with 10 priority areas for consideration.
Mayor Andrew Lee said the report will inform the development of an implementation strategy to lead, promote and facilitate economic development and support local people through the provision of employment, income and services.
“It is expected there will be an increase in domestic and international tourism with a focus on food and wine tourism, arts, culture, events and natural assets,” Mr Lee said.
“We need to capitalise on the region’s natural resources, renewable energy, forestry, agriculture, cattle and seafood to add value, attract investment and build new businesses.
“Within the health and community services sector there will be growth in health and aged care and leverage opportunities from population ageing.”
Building skills, capability, population and participation, supporting retail and professional services and investing in economic infrastructure were listed as “key enablers”.
“In many ways there are no real surprises here and it is pleasing to see there are strong synergies with other recently completed reports, including council’s digital strategy and action plan, the economic scorecard, futures paper and community plan 2016-20,” Mr Lee said.
“The City of Mount Gambier recognises it will need to play an increasingly important role in economic development in the future in order to implement the City Growth Strategy, however it is important to note council will not be able to fully implement the strategy on its own.
“Full implementation will require strong cooperation between key community stakeholders and those at a state and federal level to deliver on a shared economic development vision.
“Elected members are very keen to participate in the process of developing implementation plans and a workshop will be scheduled in the near future to achieve this objective prior to a plan being formally considered by council.”
The report will be presented to elected members for endorsement at tonight’s full council meeting.
