Wednesday, 8 April 2020
Regional chambers of commerce across the State have told the South Australian Business Chamber that their local business communities have been hit hard by COVID-19 and the chambers will require significant support to bring their towns back to life once the crisis is over.
Representatives from 10 chambers joined the South Australian Business Chamber in an emergency Virtual Summit today, to provide crucial feedback on the impact of COVID-19 in regional towns and communities.
The South Australian Business Chamber CEO, Martin Haese, said regional associations were doing their very best with limited resources and needed more support to help small businesses in their towns.
“Hospitality and tourism businesses are often the lifeblood of smaller towns in the regions and what we heard from our Regional Virtual Summit was that some of these towns are now on life support,” Mr Haese said.
“While our major cities have been hit hard, our regions have been hit if not harder, with these towns so strongly reliant on tourism.
“We’ve also seen a double whammy affect in some of the regions who were still in recovering from the bushfires when COVID-19 hit, Kangaroo Island included.
“What we heard from our Regional Virtual Summit today is that the business associations are strongly encouraging communities to buy local to support their local businesses, but overall they are doing it tough and they will need help in the recovery phase.
“The South Australian Business Chamber calls on all levels of government and local councils to fast track as soon as it is safe to do so a program of regional infrastructure projects. Shovel ready projects will create jobs but more importantly will help restore confidence in these towns, which is desperately needed.
“While winning the health battle is still very much the priority at this time, we are also calling for an urgent regional tourism campaign to be prepared in order to kick-start intra-state tourism when social distancing restrictions are eased to get people into these towns and regions as soon as possible.
“Our regions will be important in our economic recovery from this devastating pandemic and will need significant support to restart in the post COVID-19 environment.”
The regional Virtual Summit was one of four that the South Australian Business Chamber has held over the past week, involving more than 50 industry leaders across a broad spectrum of industries from church and community representatives to agri-bodies and sporting associations.
“Through these Virtual Summits, we have been able to gain a broad perspective on what the real pain points are, and ideas to get South Australia through to the other side of the current crisis” Mr Haese said.
“I look forward to tabling our report at the Premier’s Industry Response and Recovery Council.”
