It’s all about opportunity!

Prince George’s long awaited report into the potential economic impact of an inland port has been released. A fifty seven page exploration of how the container Port in Prince Rupert and other trade options in the province could help spur on the Prince George economy.

The report suggests that an inland port tied into the Prince Rupert Port development could provide for 75-100 jobs in Prince George alone and up to as many as 340 jobs in the entire Northern region. A total bump of 44 million dollars in wages for communities along highways 16 and 97.

Concentrating on forest exports alone, the report states the industry in Northern BC provides enough product at the moment that they could fill up to 62,000 containers a year. The plan would be to use Prince George as a shipment point that could receive 30,000 containers and ship out 30,000 containers a year.

Already it would seem plans are in the works to turn Prince George into a major shipping point, with CN working on their rail yard in the downtown area of the city and the Airport taking land out of the agricultural reserve to develop for light industrial and shipping purposes.

If nothing else, the Rupert container port is going to change the nature of employment and economic activity in the North and Prince George seems to be pretty quick off the mark to capitalize on those opportunities. We would like to hope that there are similar efforts a job creation in place in the local area, so we can share in the spin off effects of the project on our doorstep.

The report that was released today will also be presented at the upcoming conference on Containerization being put on by Community Futures of the Pacific Northwest later this month.

Opinion 250 had the first look at the report and posted it on their website on Monday. We provide the hard copy below for your investigation.

Inland Container Report Study In
Opinion 250
Prince George
November 6, 2006

This is it, the 57 page report that outlines the opportunities presented by the creation of an inland container port in Prince George.

Its all about opportunities says Prince George Airport Authority boss Steig Hoeg, and this report paints the picture of what can happen for those who get on board for an inland container port in Prince George.

The report says utilizing the back-haul opportunities presented by the development of the new Prince Rupert Port, there is a potential to create 75 - 100 new jobs in the Prince George area, and as many as 340 jobs spread throughout the region.

According to the report, that would create more than $44 million in wages. The authors of the report says most of the jobs would be the traditionally higher paying positions.

To start, the study says the focus should be on shipping forest products . The report says forest products in Northern B.C. last year generated "enough lumber and pulp exports to East Asia to fill 62 thousand containers." The study expects P.G. could handle 30 thousand containers coming in, and shipping 30 thousand out each year.

The next steps involve spreading the word, as the container facility and warehousing has to be in place by the time the Rupert port opens in the fall of 2007. That leaves a relatively short window. "There are already plenty of things being done " says Don Zurowski of Community Futures Development Corporation. "Some industries have been putting things in place, but those are their announcements to make".

Northern Development Trust Chair Bruce Sutherland says he knows there is already activity underway "I get phone calls every week for the past year, and there is a lot of stuff in the works, and as Don says, they will announce, but there are a lot of things happening already."

Katherine Scouten of Initiatives Prince George says there has already been interest expressed by some industries about the possibilities "Industry is the one that is driven more than we are to have that port open (inland container port). It is the opportunity the private sector is already well familiar with that will be driving the urgency for it to be open. In the interim , we will continue to move forward, in some of these areas we already have some activity, so it’s accelerating and focusing them."

CN has been noted to be making adjustments to its operations on First Avenue, and there has been a great deal of activity in the former BCR site.

The Premier has already indicated there is provincial support for an inland port facility, and the Northern Developments Initiatives Trust recently loaned the Airport $11 million to expand its runways and develop an air cargo facility. That is one third of the overall cost of that project.
In addition, land owners near the airport have recently had property removed from the Agricultural land reserve and rezoned for light industrial use.

The challenge now is to get the message out to all communities along the 16 - 97 corridor so they can benefit from the possibilities presented by an inland port.

The complete report is available by clicking here.

Posted on Monday, November 06, 2006 11:33 AM in News by 250 News