WEST COAST SNAPSHOT
Regional GDP, 2014: $52,306 per capita (national: $51,319) Percentage change in GDP, 2009-14: 15% (national: 22.4%) Average household income (2013): $75,400 (national: $88,400) Median house price (2013): $212,000 (national: $397,000) Employment rate (2014): 63.6 (national: 64.5) The West Coast has the second smallest, and least diverse, economies in NZ. From 2009 to 2014 the region’s GDP increased by 15 per cent, compared to the national average of 22.4 per cent. The five largest industries contribute about half of the region’s GDP, leaving the area vulnerable to industry shocks, especially in mining, forestry, fisheries and agriculture. International tourism expenditure made up 9.3 per cent of the West Coast’s GDP in 2013. Nationally the average is 3 per cent. Sources: Statistics NZ, Regional Economic Activity Report 2013
His developments are a long-term commitment, but he’ll continue to invest, he says.
Up the road, in Westport, they’re doing it tough. The Buller town will be hardest hit by the coming job losses. In desperate times, the town has reached out to Canterbury retirees in an effort to stimulate the housing market through the current turmoil.
It might not be the place you’d expect to find a multi-million dollar laboratory, but tucked away off the main drag sits a minerals and environment testing facility for SGS.
General manager and Buller boy Hugh McMillan says there’s no reason a town like Westport can’t host the kind of facilities SGS needs.
Though its West Coast locations read like a list of mining towns – Westport, Runanga, Reefton and Ngakawau – McMillan says they’re diversifying away from the mining industry.
From July, they will take over environmental testing for the Buller District Council. Until then, testing had to be done out of town.
McMillan says the company has been working with Victoria University to develop effluent pond leak tests. There’s also work on the horizon testing road aggregates.
He says as long as he can continue to deliver on the bottom line, Westport is as good a place as any to base a laboratory.
Forestry. Fisheries. Property Development. High-tech testing. haven’t even touched upon the big two: dairy and tourism.
The West Coast’s future is up for grabs. It was built on gold. It prospered on coal. But King Coal has been usurped, coasters say.
It will be back, though perhaps not in the same way. Coal in the future may be small, niche, valueadded.
The region has decisions to make, it needs bright ideas to diversify its work opportunities rather than be driven by the fluctuations of single industries, it’s said.
One thing remains the same, the Coast is a region rich in resource. The richest of which may the people most devoted to this narrow strip of land, between the Alps and the Tasman.