Development funds unveiled
September 29, 2008 | By Frank Peebles, Prince George Citizen
Fort St. James is the first community to see major benefits from a $30-million investment in business by the Northern Development Initiative Trust.
The NDIT unveiled the financial program on Monday.
Businesses in the export or manufacturing sectors are eligible to receive cash if they invest their own money in capital upgrades or in employee training, provided they are creating new jobs in the region. Qualifying companies can receive up to $10,000 per new job (minimum of two must be created) in incentives.
"The program benefits participating businesses by lowering the costs of purchasing productivity increasing capital equipment, and/or training new employees," said Janine North, CEO of the NDIT. "The training rebate offers the flexibility to cover any combination of training provider costs and/or on-the-job training costs for new employees."
North said forest company Conifex is the first major example of how it works. The training rebates played an important role in its decision to purchase forestry and sawmilling assets in Fort St. James and ramp up the timelines for training the workforce and starting up production this fall.
“The Northern BC Business Advantage program gave us the confidence and support we needed to successfully conclude the transaction,” said Ken Shields, CEO of Conifex Inc. “The benefits available under the program are an important reason we accepted the challenge of retraining our existing workforce and recruiting new employees.”
The new program was supported Monday by Frank Everitt, president of United Steelworkers Local 1-424, and Nak’azdli economic development manager Leonard Thomas who is working with Conifex on behalf of Nak’azdli, Tl’azt’en and Takla First Nations. Everitt and Thomas both celebrated the anticipated jobs that will be created in the Fort St. James area as a result of this investment.
