India's Creates Manufacturing Competitiveness Council

India's Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has approved the setting up of a National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council (NMCC) to energise and sustain the growth of the manufacturing sector. More here.

KC Benchmarks San Diego

More than 70 Kansas City-area leaders will visit San Diego next week to make a best-practices study of San Diego's public-private urban redevelopment partnerships. More here.

Sustainable ED More Important to Future Leaders

Sustainable economic development is likely to be more important to the next generation of business and economic development leaders. Click here to read more.

New ED Bond Capability Sought in North Carolina

Former NC Governor Jim Hunt is campaigning again -- this time in support of a state constitutional amendment that would give local governments the power to take on debt to support economic development. The measure will appear on the Nov. 2 general election ballot.

Hunt says it will spur economic development and he has joined with former governors Jim Holshouser and Jim Martin to lobby in favor of the amendment.

The change would allow local governments to sell bonds to finance infrastructure improvements, such as water and sewer lines, in a special district designed to support private development. The increased tax values in those districts should generate enough income to pay off the project debt.

More here.

Canada's Brain Drain Issues

Those of you tackling the brain drain issue may find this Canadian website on the issue to be very interesting. Check it out here.

Economics of Happiness

Does money buy happiness, love or even sex? The answers come from the fast-growing field of "happiness economics." A group of economists and psychologists in that field are touting the creation of so-called "national well-being indicators" which would track a country's happiness in the same way gross domestic product measures a country's economic strength.

Pure economics, they say, can't explain the fact that the U.S. is now three times richer than it was since the end of World War Two, but Americans are no happier than they were then. In fact, young Americans today are more anxious and more stressed out. One recent study found that frequent sex makes people happier, but contrary to perceptions, money can't buy sex or a good sex life.

More here.

Automotive Supply Chain

Looking for good data on the value of various products and services that are part of the auto manufacturing supply chain? Check out this 2002 Economic Census report here. See the end of the report.

Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation

If you are looking for data on the growth and performance of the arts, entertainment, and recreation sector of the national economy, click here and see what the 2002 Economic Census has to say.

IT Sector Job Outlook

The number of U.S. IT jobs increased by just 2% between the first quarter of 2003 and the first quarter of 2004, and demand for IT workers is expected to slow during the rest of the year, according to a survey by the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA).

The overall size of the US IT workforce grew from about 10.3 million to 10.5 million jobs from 2003 to 2004, according to an ITAA survey of 500 hiring managers from both IT and non-IT companies across the US.

But hiring managers indicated they will seek to fill a total of 230,000 jobs in 2004, down from a total of about 500,000 IT jobs filled in the past year. The net increase of about 200,000 jobs in the past year takes into account about 300,000 layoffs.

More here.

Impact of Productivity Growth Worldwide

Productivity has grown right through the downturn and into the incipient recovery. A 1 percent increase in productivity eliminates the need for about 1.3 million jobs.

Of the 2.7 million jobs lost over the past three years, a million were lost within 90 days after 9/11, and only 300,000 resulted from outsourcing.

In 1990, America had 169,000 steelworkers. Eleven years later, that number had been cut nearly in half--but those workers produced 17 percent more steel.

The long-term trend for manufacturing employment has been downhill for at least 25 years, and it probably won't be going back up again. This is true not only for America but for the world's 20 largest economies. We lost 11 percent of our manufacturing jobs; the Japanese lost 15 percent; Brazil lost 20 percent. Even China lost 15 percent. Why? Higher productivity.

More here.

Airlines Still Not Good

British Airways is canceling almost 1,000 Heathrow flights over the next three months in a move it says will protect its operational performance.

More here.

Cheyenne, Wyoming: Friendly Place

"The people are so friendly," he said. "That's one of the first things I noticed."

This is from a recent article touting Cheyenne, Wyoming as a people and family-friendly place.

More here.

Vail, Colorado: People Friendly Downtown

Read this article and how Vail is aiming to make its downtown more people (pedestrian) friendly.

More here.

Another one on Friendliness

High Point Regional praised for family friendliness. This is a headline in the NC Triad regional business journal. High Point Regional Health System is one of 40 companies statewide to be recognized by Carolina Parenting Inc. as "family friendly," the hospital announced Tuesday.

Healthcare institutions can do. Can communities?

More here.

More on Friendliness

Louisiana lists friendliness as one of ten reasons why people should retire in Louisiana. "You will find friendly people and friendly places in each and every region of the state." I would bet there are other places that see this as an advantage. More here.

China Attracting R&D Labs

Microsoft is setting up a major new R&D lab in China. Microsoft is not the only multinational company to use China as a base for research and development. In recent years hundreds of them have set up laboratories here, and Chinese officials claim the number is growing by 200 a year.

The labs vary in size and ambition, but as they multiply and expand they may help China grow from mostly a user and copier of advanced technologies developed elsewhere into a powerful incubator of its own, industry executives and experts say. And the shift may eventually reshape applied research, jobs and policies in the United States and other developed countries.

"The Chinese are going to become sources of innovation,'' said Denis Fred Simon, a specialist in Chinese science and technology who is provost of the new graduate-level Levin Institute of the State University of New York. "They will find themselves enmeshed in global R.& D. more and more.''

More here.

India's Industry Success

The wealth generated by India's fast-growing information technology and business-process-outsourcing industries shows that the country has started living up to its economic potential. Unfortunately, they produce just 3 percent of GDP and employ less than one-half of 1 percent of the nonfarm labor force.

By contrast, most sectors of India's economy remain shielded from global competition by high tariffs and restrictions on foreign direct investment and are thus woefully uncompetitive. Although some might argue that removing these barriers would threaten social objectives such as the protection of jobs and incomes, a robust economy would be more likely to realize them.

The take-away: If India is to replicate the success of its IT and outsourcing industries elsewhere in its economy, its leaders must lower barriers to trade and encourage foreign investment in other sectors.

More here.

U.S. Airways Continues to Stumble

US Airways has sought bankruptcy protection for the second time in two years, after failing to persuade its unions to sign up to $800m-worth of pay cuts. Other big airlines, such as Delta, may follow suit. The industry has never been in a worse state

US Airways had been the first big airline to seek chapter 11 protection after the September 11th 2001 hijackings that clobbered the industry. It used its court protection to slash its debt and leasing costs and to cut overall annual costs by $1.9 billion. However, the savings have not been enough, and the airline said earlier this year that it would turn itself into a low-cost, no-frills outfit in a bid to keep flying.

More here.

Trade Gap Narrows Some

After June's trade whopper -- a record U.S. monthly deficit of $55.8 billion -- any lesser number would have looked good by comparison. And indeed, the Commerce Dept.'s Sept. 10 release of trade figures for July, which showed the gap narrowing to $50.1 billion, below economists' median forecast of $51.5 billion, provided some relief to financial markets after June's shocking report. The lower-than-expected July trade gap was due mostly to both downward revisions in imports in June, and a brisk 1.5% drop in goods imports in July.

The 1.4% July import drop that followed the 2.9% June gain left a more sustainable trajectory for imports, and the surprises were concentrated in the goods data, and particularly in the industrial-supplies component, which had previously been reported as posting remarkable 5% gains in both May and June.

More here.

Major Developments in Korea Planned

Investors from the United States, including billionaire Donald Trump's son, plan to invest US$3 billion to develop Yeongjong Island in Incheon, part of a Korean government project to create a Northeast Asian logistics hub.

Trump's group is considering a casino, hotel and convention centre development, the statement said. That would fit with the government's plan to develop the reclaimed island located 50km west of Seoul and already home to the nation's Incheon International Airport.

The government said last year it plans to invest a total of 202 trillion won (S$305 billion) in and around Yeongjong by 2020, with 94 per cent of it through overseas investment. After his election in 2002, Korea President Roh Moo Hyun presented an economic blueprint that aims to turn Seoul into a financial hub, and the port of Incheon and two other ports into shipping centres.

More here.

Implications of this Legal Challenge to Other States

Here is one to gives some thought to. The same thing could happen in your state.

The state of Ohio has asked the full 6th U.S Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider a ruling from a three-judge panel that declared Ohio 's investment tax credit unconstitutional.

The case involved special tax credits that the state of Ohio gave to the Chrysler Group while it was building in the new Toledo North Assembly plant in the late 1990s and during this decade. The plant was specifically designed to replace an old factory in the center of Toledo that had been in use for more than a century.

The three-judge panel, however, ruled that the investment credit gives preferential treatment to companies that expand within the state, rather than in other states. The judges said the breaks hinder interstate commerce. The ruling, though it didn't rule out other forms of specific aid from state and local government, appeared to call into question all kinds of aid to industry, said one senior Chrysler official familiar with the case.

In fact, if the entire court upholds the three-judge panel's original decision, the Ohio case could be used to challenge programs in other states, The National Taxpayers Union has founded that 35 of the 45 states with a corporate income tax offered credits on new investments.

More here.

The Power of Friendliness

We look to cost-competiveness, knowledge, technology, talent, community readiness, and many other things as sources of competitive advantage for economic development.

Is it possible that being a friendly and welcoming place could be an overlooked source of advantage for communities?

I see so much jealousy, resentment, anger, fear, and ego in the places where I work. People don't converse. They don't like each other. They only care about their own selfish interests. They really do not show much friendliness and genuine concern for human beings. Maybe we would do a better job of retaining and attracting people, jobs, and businesses if we simply created friendlier places that made people feel welcome.

ED Leadership

Every ED organization needs effective and committed leadership to succeed. What is leadership? In a nutshell, it is the ability to make the right decisions at the right time, and the willingness and ability to do the right things in making those decisions future realities.