US Channels - Gold Coast

Gold Coast

Gold Coast City Council - GCCC

The Gold Coast is Australia's sixth largest city and the fastest growing regional centre, with a local market that increases by 3.4% per year. In addition, the city's proximity to the Asia-Pacific region and major transport infrastructure increases regional export potential. Gold Coast City Council works collaboratively with State and Federal Governments to provide the world-class infrastructure and low-cost business environment that support business development and expansion.

Very high standards of tertiary education and a multi-cultural community combine to provide businesses with a skilled, multi-lingual workforce. The city has extremely competitive office and industrial costs. Gold Coast city has also been officially recognised as a Queensland Heritage Icon. Not the least of Gold Coast City's many advantages for new and established businesses are the diverse attractions that continue to make this one of Australia's most popular and enduring tourism destinations.

The Economic Development Branch of Gold Coast City Council aims to broaden the economic base of the City through a range of strategies and works closely with key industry representatives and associations to improve economic stability and growth.

The Economic Development Strategy has been developed to set the direction for economic development of Gold Coast City until 2010. There are two underlying themes to the strategy:

Interdependence - sustainable development and related elements
Important of planning - providing leadership and flexibility for opportunities as they arise and annual planning.

The Economic Development Branch has highlighted nine industry sectors of high growth and is providing support to these sectors to ensure economic sustainability and managed development:

Creative
Education
Environment
Food
Health and Medical
Information and Communication Technology
Marine
Sport
Tourism

In addition to the nine industry sectors, the Economic Development branch also manages the International Connections Program and the Pacific Innovation Corridor project.

The Gold Coast City Council's International Relations (IR) Unit is responsible for deriving economic and cultural benefits from the Coast's Sister City relationships and international connections. Gold Coast City has twelve Sister City relationships and has trade and exchange connections with a further eleven cities through the Global Digital City Network.

The Pacific Innovation Corridor (PIC) is one of Gold Coast City Council's long term signature economic development projects that focuses on geographical precincts to promote and develop the growth of business and economic opportunities nationally and internationally through globally connected innovation, knowledge and technology initiatives.

Strategies to achieve the PIC goal include:

Creating a number of globally capable geographical industry centres. These centres to be characterised by a critical mass of similar and related firms, and by the availability and intensity of knowledge, R & D, innovation and extensive inter-firm and international interaction. PIC aims to enhance, where appropriate, economic specialisations at specific centres given the respective strengths and anchor firms.
Ensuring that Gold Coast is globally competitive in the availability, coverage, cost and capacity of telecommunications infrastructure and in the uptake and adoption of resulting technologies. This objective ensures that the hard 'telecommunications' infrastructure delivery is prioritised in PIC Centres.

Contact Information:

For more information about Gold Coast City, or the Gold Coast City Council's Economic Development Strategy, please contact:

businessgc@goldcoast.qld.gov.au