THUNDER BAY – According to a business confidence survey, local entrepreneurs have high hopes for the economic climate in the city.
The survey, commissioned by Thunder Bay Ventures, shows that 92 per cent of the 185 respondents believe they will experience improved or stable economic well-being over the next year, while 81 per cent believe the local economy has been stable for the past year.
“We were actually surprised with the level of confidence. It’s very high and it’s consistent with what we see when we talk to our own clients and investments in Thunder Bay,” said Royden Potvin, manager of Thunder Bay Ventures.
“People owning their own businesses are very confident … in their own ability to generate revenues, to maintain their staff and to keep their marketplace as it is or grow it. We think that’s a really positive thing.”
One disturbing trend, he added, was a lack of new business starts.
That’s troubling, Potvin said.
“That is of concern,” he said. “But certainly the businesses that are here are confident in what they’re doing, how they’re operating and where they’re going in the future.”
Charla Robinson, who heads the Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce, said there is clearly a lot of optimism being shown on the part of the city’s entrepreneurs, in the face of a number of challenges.
“That’s really nice to see. Entrepreneurs tend to be more optimistic than perhaps your average Joe, so it’s nice to see that coming through in the numbers,” Robinson said, adding the survey, which replaced Thunder Bay Venture’s small business survey and now includes businesses across the economic spectrum, echoed what those in her organization have been hearing at street level for years.
“Things like the rising cost of doing business,” Robinson said. “That’s been something we’ve been working on a lot, so it’s nice to see that we’re on the right track and this corresponds with that.”
Robinson said the survey also identified ways to create a better business environment, including shopping local, a pet project of the Chamber’s.
“It’s nice to see that message is resonating in the community and the business community is saying they want to see more of that, they want to do more of that, they want to collaborate more and work with other local businesses, because that’s positive for everybody,” Robinson said.
Suggestions that arose during the survey included calls for a lower business tax levy, incentives for owning businesses and buildings in core areas of Thunder Bay, a revised strategy to develop skilled trades and more efforts to develop the Ring of Fire.
“One of the big outcomes of this was the suggestion of business collaboration and how we all need to work together,” Potvin said.
Businesses expressed an average of 5.8 out of 10 in terms of their confidence in the city’s economic future, the lowest of the nine indicators.
