THE Tamworth Business Chamber says council’s trips to China could soon reap thousands of jobs for the region.
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Tamworth Regional Council has made several business trips to China in recent years, in a bid to secure investment from the Asian nation for the region.
This time around, the business chamber wanted a seat at the table to make sure the region was getting bang for its ratepayer buck and to keep local jobs at the forefront.
Upon returning from the trip, Mr Segboer was confident the region would see some “big announcements in the next 12 months”.
“There’s a perception in the community that it’s a junket and nothing comes of it,” he said.
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“Being involved and seeing it firsthand, I’m very confident in the months ahead there will be a lot of big announcements that will create local jobs.”
Earlier in the week, Tamworth mayor Col Murray said agriculture, education and tourism were hot topics during the trip.
Mr Segboer said a lot of projects were still commercial in confidence, but discussions around investment at the airport and international air-freight “could see thousands of jobs in the region”. It was the first time the chamber has gone global and Mr Segboer it was incumbent on the organisation to be active in growing the region’s economy.
“In the past, the chamber has lacked vision in terms of economic growth for the region,” he said.
While the chamber is wants to make sure foreign investment means local jobs, it also wants to ensure new businesses “flourish” when they start-up in the region.
The chamber has started creating “information packs” which will be distributed to new businesses.
“We’re doing new business info-packs that let people know who to talk to in council and who they can contact in the chamber,” he said.
“We want to have them flourish and not close down after 12 months.”