ATLANTA (Feb. 2, 2012) It's time for Georgia to stop losing big job-creation deals to South Carolina and Alabama due to lack of competitiveness, Georgia's top economic development official said this morning at a real estate forecast meeting.
And Georgia is about to take action to ensure the state doesn't continue to lose to its neighbors, said Chris Cummiskey, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Economic Development. He made his comments at the Jones Lang LaSalle 2012 Real Estate Forecast Breakfast at the St. Regis in Buckhead.
Gov. Nathan Deal's Competitiveness Initiative bill is expected to be introduced in the Georgia House of Representatives today.
Quite frankly, it's about money," he told the crowd. "We've got to find ways to close that gap becuase we have been losing to South Carolina...They have eaten our lunch too many times." Alabama also has beaten out Georgia on large projects, and that's got to stop too, Cummiskey said.
Georgia will update its current incentives platform (established in 1994) to become more agressive on the incentives front. However, because Georgia is blessed with assets such as the Georgia Ports and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the state doesn't have to give away as much as South Caroline and Alabama to win big corporate relocations and automobile manufacturing plants.
Georgia needs to start offering "80 to 85 percent" of the incentives put up by competitive states, Cummiskey said. But, he stressed, these incentives must help attract higher-paying jobs.
"We have not moved the needle enough on salaries," he said. "We have to have the better-paying jobs here. We have to find ways tomove that needle."
During the event, Jones Lang LaSalle also debuted its cool Urban Skyline mobile version. Check it out here.
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