DES MOINES — Again in December, Debi Durham predicted 2020 can be among the finest years of her decade as chief of the Iowa Financial Improvement Authority (IEDA).
“And we’ve had some stellar years,” Durham advised the Financial Improvement Appropriations Subcommittee Wednesday.
She based mostly her prediction on commerce offers that had been signed, optimistic indicators within the farm sector and a rebound in manufacturing.
“Little did I do know we’d take care of a Black Swan occasion known as COVID,” she mentioned.
The coronavirus pandemic was a setback, however Durham stays bullish on Iowa’s economic system and financial growth potential.
There are pockets of concern, she mentioned. The hospitality business, for instance, has been “devastated,” however “our ag economic system is powerful, our manufacturing is trying to come again extraordinarily robust … our unemployment numbers are, in most each county, inside attain of the place they have been earlier than COVID.”
“So I’d let you know, we shouldn’t have a recession,” Durham mentioned. “General, our economic system did very, very nicely.”
That wasn’t the case in every single place “and I’ll let you know that our telephone is ringing from prospects that need to convey manufacturing tasks to Iowa from locations like Minnesota from Illinois.”
ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ADVERTISEMENT
Durham credited that to choices made by the Legislature and her boss, Gov. Kim Reynolds, to maintain core industries open by means of the pandemic, to maintain the economic system open.
“Government choices, legislative choices make an enormous distinction,” she mentioned.
She’s asking the Legislature to proceed to point out that management by shopping for into the IEDA’s Manufacturing 4.0 plan that features making grants to small and medium-sized producers — “not John Deere or Collins Aerospace” — for capital funding in sensible manufacturing applied sciences.
Additionally crucial for financial growth in addition to neighborhood growth is constructing out broadband infrastructure, Durham mentioned. Though governors have been pushing broadband for years, he pandemic confirmed “there are definitely locations which are being left behind, there are broadband deserts.”
The pandemic additionally underscored that broadband will not be a luxurious. Broadband entry and pace are lagging, and Iowa should absolutely make investments so Iowans can be taught, work and entry important companies, akin to well being care, on-line, Durham mentioned. It’s additionally crucial for Iowa’s high-tech jobs, manufacturing, precision agriculture, training system, and native economies.
And Iowa should handle its inhabitants downside, Durham mentioned. Iowa has extra jobs than individuals to fill them. Nationwide statistics present 10,000 child boomers depart the workforce every day. In Iowa, she mentioned, it’s about 100 a day.
Feedback: (319) 398-8375; james.lynch@thegazette.com
[New] UVILIZER Razor - UV Light Sanitizer & Ultraviolet LED Sterilizer Wand (Portable UV-C Cleaner for Home, Car, Travel | Foldable UVC Disinfection Bulb | Kills 99% of Germs, Bacteria, Viruses | USA)
Source link
