Nanaimo businesses will have access to $10 million in potential grant money from Island Coastal Economic Trust.
The trust is a non-governmental body, formed in 2006 to aid economic development on north and central Vancouver Island. On Friday, the B.C. government announced it was contributing an additional $10 million to the fund.
According to Line Robert, ICE-T CEO, its economic infrastructure program is one area the money will be delivered.
Robert said the program is about infrastructure that is incremental to the economy. It has gone into some key tourism amenities in the region and also non-tourism related ventures servicing Nanaimo.
“There have been supports for tech with the Square One tech incubator, supports for the film industry with InFilm (film commission) and developing a database, so really a wide range of things,” said Robert. “Our focus is to be supporting growth sectors in the economy and emerging sectors of the economy.
“This additional $10 million is going to give us the opportunity to have a runway to plan forward and to be able to gauge now, in this next phase, where do we concentrate our energy in the region, what is it that the region needs in the next phase?”
Robert estimates investment in technology, agrifoods and sectors that align with the Province of B.C.’s jobs plan.
The trust granted money to Nanaimo Port Authority for its cruise ship terminal welcome centre and Bernie Dumas, port president and CEO, said it will examine whether to again bid for money. The process for applying includes presenting a business case, he said.
“We went through the exercise with the cruise terminal here a bunch of years ago and we’ll follow the same practice … we’ll more than likely put something in for maybe our marina or something of that nature,” said Dumas.
The port is also looking at upgrading its infrastructure at Duke Point, a bigger project that may be more than the trust can handle, but it will talk to the trust to see what opportunities there are, said Dumas.
For more information, including how to apply, please go to www.islandcoastaltrust.ca.
