Tariffs continue to be top of mind for the Quinte Economic Development Commission.
At its meeting on Thursday, CEO Chris King stated QEDC has applied to the Tariff-Impacted Communities Fund to support the local manufacturing sector on a number of fronts, including trade diversification.
King said this ‘scalable and flexible’ application will allow for opportunities to take part in some programs to help create more local and regional supply chain connections among manufacturers.
“We also want to look at the defence sector and try to tie our manufacturers into that growing sector,” he told media following the meeting.
“As we increase spending in Canada for defense, we see opportunities for our manufacturers to capture more of that market, but also a FDI or foreign direct investment opportunity for our manufacturer, for our region, to attract defense industry to our region. We see some opportunities there.”
Additionally, the final piece that QEDC applied for is technology adoption support for manufacturers.
“A number of years ago, we did a pilot project called the Quinte Technology Adoption Program to support manufacturers and applying advanced technologies and robots within their within their sites,” King explained.
“We’ve applied for additional funds to continue that program on and do more. It’s a pretty effective way to support our manufacturers.”
In other tariff-related news, King noted there have been some mixed reactions from local and regional manufacturers.
“We talk to some manufacturers that are laying off a substantial part of their workforce but we have others that are growing, expanding, and investing.”
Some of the manufacturers that are in good shape include food processing companies that can ship across the country and the Canada-US border tariff-free if they are compliant with the USMCA (United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement).
King acknowledged steel, aluminum, and automotive industries are seeing declines and layoffs.
He also referred to a study done by the Canadian Chambers of Commerce that listed the Bay of Quinte region number 11 in Canada in terms of exposure to the US marketplace for exports.
“Our region is impacted and will be impacted. I think we have a good argument of why we need additional support for manufacturers,” King remarked.
(BROCK ORMOND)
