An economic development think tank formed in the Bay of Plenty three years ago is creating a key role for itself, the Bay of Plenty Regional Council heard this week.

Bay of Connections was formed with money from New Zealand Trade and Enterprise aimed at funding regional strategic development.

The regional council took on the coordinating role for an independent agency comprising repres

entatives from the three economic development agencies in the Bay; Priority One, Toi-EDA, and Destination Rotorua.

In addition, there were three business representatives, and a chairman.

The board's management group includes the three council CEOs and the regional council's group manager technology and economic development Miles McConway.

'We are not direct investors in the economy, that's not the role,” says Miles.

'We are about enabling, connecting and influencing and the strategies we have developed – the main focus is to be very action oriented.

'We don't want to write reports and strategies that just gather dust. The focus areas will have action groups appointed. They will be hopefully made up from the advisory groups and their job will be to action the strategies.

'It is working quite well with the aquaculture strategy where we have formed a regional aquaculture organisation after the strategy was developed, that was one of the actions identified in the strategy and they are now putting in place those actions.”

The aquaculture strategy was launched in late 2009, with a stocktake of the region's infrastructure to support the emerging industry and what would be needed to reach a goal of $250 million in exports by 2025. Funding has been applied for to carry out open ocean aquaculture research off Opotiki.

Since the beginning of this year, progress has been made in energy, aquaculture, forestry and wood processing, supply chain and logistics, and with updating the Bay of Connections strategy.

Bay of Connections also facilitates and provides advice, partnering key players. These include supporting regionally significant issues like the Te Kaha Maungaroa irrigation scheme, promoting the region as ready for broadband investment through the government's ultra fast broadband and rural broadband investment funds, and developing a governance model to promote the significant Maori land and business asset base within the Bay of Plenty.

'I think it's a pretty good model for a regional approach to economic development,” says Miles.

'We are making sure it continues to work going into the future, we want to get some metrics in place so that when we go out and review statistics going into the future, we will have some measurable achievements.”

Future strategies will have a greater degree of economic analysis, with measureable targets, and more quantitative analysis to ensure any future funding and resource allocation is targeted to sectors where there is a high degree of confidence in the delivery of significant and positive results, says Miles.

This week's Bay of Plenty Regional Council strategy, policy and planning committee heard that food and beverage and aquaculture strategies have been developed, a background report completed for an energy strategy and a feasibility study conducted for the proposed Tauranga Harbour Central Marine precinct.

A regional energy forum was held last month, an important step in developing an energy strategy and action plan to be completed in August.

A supply chain and logistics advisory group was established in February with membership from across the Bay of Plenty, Auckland, Waikato and Hawke's Bay.

'We have achieved much in the past two and a half years, and the strategy has given us a clear path forward that is already delivering results,” says Miles, 'but as with any piece of work, it will need to continue to evolve to meet the changing environment.

'Our world has changed significantly in the past few years so it's vital that our regional economic strategy changes and evolves with it.”