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The Baton Rouge area economy and the Baton Rouge
Area Chamber remain in high gear. |
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In 2007, BRAC kicked off year two of The Campaign for a Greater Baton
Rouge, a bold, five-year, regional economic development program funded
by leading organizations throughout the Capital Region. With dramatically
increased support from the business community, strong regional
collaboration, and a new mission focused on economic development,
BRAC is swiftly moving toward becoming one of the top Chambers
of Commerce in America. We are implementing one of the most
aggressive business retention, expansion, and recruitment programs
in the country, and we are providing public policy leadership
on issues that are critical to our economic future.
In 2007, BRAC secured over 1,000 good jobs from
its business
development efforts - and we retained thousands more through
our ozone nonattainment litigation initiative. We helped secure
several major victories in the Legislature, including dramatically
increased funding for LSU, transportation, and the Pennington
Biomedical Research Center, as well as several new ethics
reform measures. We also charted a new course for the future
of air transportation in the region, as well as released exciting
new plans to advance public education, workforce development,
and LSU. And we launched a new small business resource center
to support small business development. Finally, we built our political
action committee, FuturePAC, into one of the top five business PACs
in Louisiana.
Our regional economy experienced robust economic growth in 2007
with strong job gains in construction, healthcare, and business services.
Several large industrial projects, increased residential, commercial,
and retail development, Gulf Opportunity Zone incentives, and
strong refining markets all contributed to our growth.
We expect healthy growth through 2008 as most of our fundamentals
remain positive. We may see a slight moderation in our growth
rate relative to 2007, yet we still expect job growth of at least 2%
for the year. Projects totaling over $10 billion are announced or
underway, not including increased residential development, and
several major project announcements are expected in the next
few months. If we can avoid a spike in natural gas prices,
it should be a terrific year for business in the Capital Region.
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During 2008 and beyond, BRAC will articulate and pursue the key things needed to prepare our
regional economy
for sustained growth in the long term, including issues related to public
education, funding for LSU and Pennington,
infrastructure,and transportation solutions.
Additionally, we will complete our initiative to make
Louisiana #1 in the country in
governmental ethics laws and enforcement.
With your active support and
involvement, we can position ourselves as one
of the leading
communities in America over the next 10-25 years. |
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