Economic Diversification Needs to Build on Core Strengths
By 250 News
Tuesday, November 04, 2008 02:39 PM
Prince George, B.C.- When it comes to economic diversification, communities are better off building on a core strength than trying to bring in something different. That’s the advice from Dr. Roger Gibbins the President of the Canada West Foundation. (Dr. Gibbins, in photo at right, photo Opinion250 staff)The Foundation is a policy think tank that looks at issues in a Western Canada context.
Born in Prince George, Dr. Gibbins has a strong understanding of the economic issues facing this community. “One of the problems we have had since time immemorial is that we’ve relied on our resources base and that has made our economy highly volatile.” He says when government’s try to reshape the economy into things the market can’t support they are doomed to failure. “What works is economic diversification that is built around the natural strengths of the provincial and regional economies, diversification that is built around that core of the economy.” He says those moves can be seen for instance in Saskatchewan where the mining of uranium has a natural lead into the development of radio isotopes for medical diagnosis.
Prince George has a strategic location, but more needs to be done to take advantage of it says Gibbins. He says there has to be a commitment to infrastructure , that other countries would think it absurd that there are still sections of our “trans Canada highway” that are only two lanes. He says we talk of corridors, but we don’t walk the walk, “Lets look at this, the City of Calgary has just spent $200 million dollars on an overpass. That’s one overpass in one city. The Federal Government’s commitment to the Asia Pacific Gateway initiative is $800 million. Do you think China is saying, I will spend the equivalent of 4 overpasses and that will link me to the world? At some point we have to shake our heads and look seriously at how we connect to global markets”
He says while we can expect global markets for forestry to continue to face challenges for at least another year, he has confidence things will get better “The Global economy is going to rebound and its going to be increasingly competitive and the communities and the countries that survive in that environment will be those who figure out how to move forward.”
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Posted by: Eagleone on November 4 2008 3:12 PM