In a surprise report that even the Lansing Eonomic Development Corporation (EDC) wasn’t expecting, Lansing showed 25 percent growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from 2001 to 2008, and a whopping 65 percent growth in the insurance and financial sectors. (GDP is the total market value of goods and services produced.)
The report from the U. S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, an arm of the U. S. Department of Commerce, also showed 15 percent growth in the Information Technology sector, while retail held steady.
“This is a completely independent validation of our economic programs,” says Bob Trezise, EDC director. “It is undeniable that the giant of Lansing is awakening.”
Furthermore, Bo Garcia, chairman of the EDC Board of Directors, noted that Lansing advanced each year of measurement over the last four years, and the GDP actually increased 2.75 percent from 2007 to 2008 when it declined in almost every other community in Michigan.
Garcia credited the city’s aggressive use of incentives to encourage new, job-creating investments, and the city’s diverse business community.
Trezise, who was appointed shortly after Mayor Virg Bernero was elected, says that in the last four years, the EDC has managed 77 projects, leveraging more than $500 million in new private investment that will create 4,000 new jobs in Lansing.
Trezise says the insurance industry is overtaking the auto industry as the number one employer in Lansing and it will likely take over the philanthropic duties General Motors once carried. For example, Jackson National Life recently made an “enormous contribution” to the Boarshead Theater.
“98 percent of cities in the Midwest would do anything to be Lansing right now,” Trezise says.
Source: Bob Trezise, Lansing EDC
Gretchen Cochran, Innovation & Jobs editor, may be reached here.
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