With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1254353
32 INVEST in BC 2 0 1 9 Official Publication of the BC Economic Development Association. In special partnership with BCBusiness. In the Shuswap region, Salmon Arm continues to see tremendous growth, and the new Salmon Arm Innovation Centre is driving expansion in the downtown core and encouraging entrepreurship. Even outside the cities, the southern Interior of B.C. has a diverse economy featuring fruit growing and processing, winemaking, ranching, mining (mostly copper), manufacturing (machinery, plastics, boats, aerospace), hydroelectric power generation and a wide variety of tourism-oriented businesses (ski resorts, fishing lodges, wineries, golf courses). As in other parts of the province, the once- dominant forest industry is having to adapt to fickle demand for lumber and a reduced timber supply due to beetle and forest fire damage. There are success stories in the sector, however. Structurlam Mass Timber Corp. of Penticton expanded its workforce to 290 last year with the addition of 70 positions at its four B.C. plants. The company is a leading manufacturer of cross-laminated timber and other engineered wood products that are increasingly used by builders as a low-carbon replacement for structural steel. More than any other region in B.C., the Thompson- Okanagan is likely to see an economic boost from construction of the Trans Mountain Expansion Project. At the beginning of this year, there were an estimated 4,200 workers engaged on the project, which will roughly triple the capacity of the existing Trans Mountain pipeline bringing crude oil from Edmonton to a tanker terminal in Burnaby. In the Thompson- Okanagan, the route traverses the North Thompson, Nicola and Coldwater valleys, passing through Kamloops, among other communities. Estimates of the project's expenditure run from $7.4 billion to $9.3 billion before it comes into service in 2022. • T H O M P S O N O K A N A G A N INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH: Kamloops (top) serves as an operations hub for the multibillion-dollar Trans Mountain Expansion Project; Penticton (bottom) is a picturesque lakeside city in Okanagan wine country TOP: TOURISMKELOWNA .COM/DARREN HULL PHOTOGRAPHY 32 INVEST in BC 2 0 2 0