Sister City Business Delegation to Tempe Arizona.

Lessons from Phoenix

12th October 2011

Introduction

• Celebration of 30 year relationship between Hutt City and Tempe.

• Hutt City Council and Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce formed the delegation.

• Need to derive economic benefit to justify the spend.

• Business-focused delegation

A little about Hutt Valley Chamber

• 750 members

• SME’s and larger companies, CRI’s etc

• Covers entire Hutt Valley - Lower Hutt and Upper Hutt

• Close, effective economic development relationship with Hutt City Council

Hutt City Economic Development

• Economic development model based on leveraging our strong science, research technology and innovation business base.

• Technology Valley – aim to make the Hutt Valley into one of NZ’s leading export and economic growth centres based on science, engineering and technology.

• One of our visions is to create and stimulate links between business and research, technology and engineering.

• 810 tech companies (BERL).

Sister Cities

• Tempe’s Sister cities– Hutt City

– Regensburg Germany

– Trollhattan, Sweden (not official sister city)

• Others– Beaulieu sur Mer, France

– Timbuktu, Mali

– Skopje, Macedonia

– Carlow, Ireland

– Cuenca, Ecuador

The Business Delegation

• Hutt City Council Mayor and Mayoress, CEO and Councillors

• President Hutt Valley Chamber

• Local business owners/ CEO’s– Gordon and Marie Malin (Solar energy)– June Ranson (Woburn International Immigration specialists)– Charles Gilmour – (Indeserve)– Cynthia Patterson – (Open Polytechnic)

Are there business

and economic development

opportunities possible

through our sister city links?

What we discovered…

• Sister cities offers a key leverage opportunity for economic growth.

• Many similarities with some of Lower Hutt’s sister cities, potentially the same for Upper Hutt.

• Many complementary economic factors with sister cities.

• Surprised to find we attracted a lot of attention bringing a business delegation – opened more doors.

Tempe/Phoenix• Technology focus.

• Intro to the No1 regional development council in USA.

• Several key business relationships established.

• Profile through sister cities.

• Several years ahead of Hutt Valley in business and economic development.

Tempe/Phoenix continued

• Really hungry for international investment and companies to establish local jobs.

• Easy to do business with.

• Our doorway and “soft landing” to the US market

Trollhattan - Sweden• Innovatum Science Park

• Home of Saab

• Focus on production technology, energy, environmental technology and creative industries

• 115 companies with 900 employees

• More than half of Sweden’s motion pictures made in Trollhattan

Regensburg - Germany

• Tech focus, bio tech, automotive, innovation, tyre pressure, transformers, LED and infrared lasers, Opto semi conductors, synthetic genes, turbine blades for aircraft, biotech.

• Next focus on engineering and science, IT incubator, IT cluster

• One of top 15 technology areas in Germany

• 3.3% unemployment

• Good example of result of tech focus

Business Introductions

Facilitated numerous introductions to key, high profile relevant companies, including -

•First Solar – largest solar company in USA

•Rio Solado College – High profile, larges online distance learning tertiary institution

•Phoenix University – largest online learning company in USA

•SkySong – technology park driving economic development

•Greater Phoenix Economic Council

•Tempe City Council

SkySong

• Global business and innovation centre

• Private public partnership/ ASU

• Aims to open up the USA domestic market to foreign companies to create local jobs

• Soft landing for global businesses

• Estimated $113.6m worth of economic impact annually in new jobs, new companies

SkySong continued

Today:• 67 companies of which 19 are international, representing 10 countries

• $113m economic impact annually

• 733 jobs

• Estimates of $9.2b when it is 30 years, including 5000 jobs

• On its way to being 1.2m square feet of offices and retail space, plus residential units

• A perfect model of one aspect that our Technology Valley programme can

achieve.

Greater Phoenix Economic Council

Greater Phoenix Economic Council• Private/public partnership

• Not for profit

• Number one recognised regional development organisation in the USA

• Is the investment promotion agency for the Phoenix, Arizona area of the United States. GPEC says its goal is to market the Phoenix region in a way that attracts quality businesses and high-wage jobs.

• A useful model for engaging the stakeholders for Technology Valley and driving economic development for Hutt City

Sister Companies

• Leverage off selected sister cities – because people prefer to do business with friends – Tempe, Regensburg, Trollhattan

• A close working international relationship

• Profiles of members

• Matching members between chambers– For joint projects, learning, market information, share skills and resources

• Possible investment or not financially related

• Share similar technologies, markets, resources

Stepping stone for entering the US Market

• Sister companies/ members through Chamber network

• Soft landing services to Arizona through SkySong, Chamber

• Sister relationship with SkySong and Tech Valley. Both recruiting international business for each other

• Foreign business delegations

Business Delegations• Work closely with council, sister city and chamber• Identify key connectors

– Events– Councils– Chambers– Economic development agencies

• More pre planning of meetings but allow time to meet other who are unaware of you until you get there

• Profile each visiting company prior

• Structured follow up and communications – incl social media.

• Need key senior people to get in the door.

Next steps

• Have set up Technology Valley Development Group based which could be a stepping stone towards GPEC model

• Further develop relationships with key people, extend invitations for hosting in LH, plus prepare for next delegation

• Keeping close– Follow up on key contacts and regular communications

for keeping and developing relationships