Looking to the future: Canterbury Employers’ Chamber of Commerce

This election was fought amidst significant uncertainty facing businesses. Now more than ever, they need a government formed, and fit-for-purpose policy settings that create certainty, reduce the cost of doing business, allow better access to a migrant workforce, and reduce compliance costs and red tape.

Canterbury businesses are bold, with big aspirations for their future and the future of the city, region, and country they choose to do business in. Like the rest of the country, our region too is facing challenges of productivity and growth, particularly now, as we also navigate an economy still recovering from the effects of Covid-19 and the global economic slowdown associated with it.

Uncertainty has grown during recent months, and businesses have been delaying investment decisions, with very real flow-on effects, as we have seen a slowdown in forward orders and demand, further reinforcing that uncertainty.

The Government has a substantial role to play in rebuilding momentum and certainty across the economy. Developed through engagement with its members, the Canterbury Employers’ Chamber of Commerce has provided a ‘Briefing for the Incoming Government’ which highlights a number of policies businesses would like to see prioritised.

These include a focus on getting inflation back to sustainable levels, regulatory certainty and reduced compliance costs so that small and medium-sized businesses can focus on productivity and growth, and increased support for small businesses. They also need fit-for-purpose immigration settings that are open, simple and predictable, investment in education, and in infrastructure, as well as action on crime and antisocial behaviour.

We look forward to welcoming the new Prime Minister and his ministerial colleagues to Canterbury in the coming months to discuss these policies.