Southland Regional Development agencies focus of primary industries

Thursday, 9 May 2019

The new Southland Regional Development Agency chairman says primary industries and agriculture hold great opportunities for the region.

Ian Collier has been in Southland for the past five days as he works to transition Venture Southland to the newly formed Southland Regional Development Agency.

Collier believes Southland has multiple opportunities to grow and a lot of that had to be driven by the core focus areas of attracting another 10,000 people to the south.

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Aquaculture and the primary industries have great opportunities for the south, he said.

'We have a 350,000 kilometres of coastline which presents significant opportunities and also some challenges as a region.  We need to ensure everything we are doing is within a sustainable framework,' he said. 

Diversifying the agriculture sector was something that came out of the Southland Regional Development Agency, he said.

Collier has also spent time with stakeholders in the south.

Regarding the recent report that Southland's employment rate dropped by 4.2 per cent, Collier said the agency needed to talk to businesses about how the increase of minimum wage might affect them.

'It's a balance between what the legislation is dictating to the employer and what the increase in minimum wage is having on them.'

Understanding the legislation, and the impact that might have on the labour market was a priority for the board, he said.