Investment
Province announces $75-million Investment and Growth Strategy – Lethbridge News Now
Some of the actions being taken under the plan include:
- Setting up an investment attraction agency to lead a global marketing strategy for key growth sectors. $6-million per year will be allocated to the Invest Alberta Corporation
- Ensuring major business leaders and investors, such as post-secondary institutions, research facilities, entrepreneur-driven companies, and those in “world-class infrastructure” are aware of “Alberta’s advantages”
- Promoting Alberta as a hub for conventional energy, renewable energy, artificial intelligence, food process, aviation, logistics, aerospace, and financial services
- Committing to investors that Alberta will deliver consolidated services with partner governments and agencies
- Focusing and “rebalancing” Alberta’s investment attraction presence in key domestic and international markets
“It is critical at this time that Alberta has a solid strategy for how to reignite its economy, create jobs and be a highly competitive place to invest and do business,” says Adam Lege, President of the Business Council of Canada. “Economies all around the world are looking for a jump-start and Alberta has the key foundational pieces in its Investment and Growth Strategy. By being focused on the development and growth of key sectors where we have natural assets and strengths, we have the potential to pull away from our competitors.”
The plan also includes mention of sector-specific strategies that include “principal sectors” like energy, agriculture, and tourism, as well as “enabling sectors” such as finance, aviation, and technology.
More details on the sector-specific strategies are expected to be released at a later date.
The government has three main outcomes through the IGS: that Alberta’s competitive advantage be increased, Alberta’s investment strategy will be improved, and Alberta’s reputation as an investment destination is raised.
Full details on the IGS can be found here.
Investment
Kelowna investment portfolio tops $950 million – Kelowna News – Castanet.net
The City of Kelowna’s investment portfolio continues to benefit from high interest rates set out by the Bank of Canada.
Interest rates, which have soared from almost nil during COVID to five per cent in the summer have been a boon to the city’s investments.
The city’s portfolio, which includes short and long-term investments as well as cash on hand has inched closer to the $1 billion threshold.
At the end of 2023, investments sat at $950.5 million, up by nearly $160 million just a year previous.
“The Bank of Canada started raising interest rates in 2022 and the city has garnered favourable interest rates as a result of the increases in 2022 and 2023,” financial planning manager Melanie Antunes told council Monday.
“The city still expects to be able to cycle low interest investment vehicles into higher rate investment vehicles as investments mature throughout 2024 and beyond.
With the prospect of interest rates beginning to recede later this year Altunes says the city’s return on investment will continue its upward direction, but at a more moderate pace that the past year.
The city presently has $295.5 million in short term investments which mature in less than a year, $493.5 million is long-term investments maturing in one to 10 years and another $159.4 million in the city’s endowment fund created through the sale of its electric utility.
While the city appears to be flush with cash, much of it is already earmarked for specific purposes.
Finance director Joe Sass says investments are made up of a “number of different reserve funds,” including development cost charges, grant funds from senior levels of government and various other funds not at the discretion of staff or council.
The City of Kelowna’s investment portfolio reached a little more than $950 million at the end of 2023.
That’s nearly $160 million more than the city had in investments and cash a year earlier.
Investment
Businesses want outstanding ‘green’ investment tax credits fast-tracked
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TORONTO — A survey by KPMG in Canada says business leaders want Ottawa to fast-track all outstanding “green” or “clean” economy business investment tax credits.
The online survey of 534 small- and medium-sized businesses done in February says 90 per cent of those questioned supported speeding up the delivery of the promised incentives.
KPMG’s Lucy Iacovelli says meeting the climate challenges and retooling the economy requires significant business investment to decarbonize and build the net-zero industries and technologies.
To deliver, Iacovelli says Ottawa needs to make it fast and easy for companies to access the clean energy investment tax credits or they risk falling further behind U.S. and other major economies.
The survey found 83 per cent of the businesses say they require more assistance and incentives to decarbonize.
Eighty per cent of those surveyed also supported federal green-related investments or incentives to attract foreign companies to locate in Canada.
Investment
Four of investors’ top 5 favorite investment destinations are in Europe, Milken Institute report shows
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Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York.
Four of investors’ top five favorite destinations are in Europe, according to the Milken Institute’s Global Opportunity Index (GOI) report.
Denmark topped this year’s rankings, scoring first on business perception, a measure of the ease of doing business in a country as well as other regulatory metrics.
The index factors in 100 indicators under five categories: business perception, economic fundamentals, financial services, institutional framework, and international standards and policy.
Denmark ranked third on economic fundamentals which capture macroeconomic performance, workforce talent, and “efforts to create a resilient and sustainable economy and society,” according to the report.
These are the top five countries that investors find attractive, according to the latest GOI report:
- Denmark
- Sweden
- Finland
- United States
- United Kingdom
The U.S. moved up one spot to the fourth position this year, ranking highest in the institutional framework category, which tracks the protection a country’s institutions offer to investors’ rights and their assets.
The country ranked fifth in the financial services category, which evaluates the overall financial system in a nation as well as the accessibility to finance.
Finland which placed third overall, was ranked highest in the international standards and policy category that evaluates economic openness and the extent to which a country’s policies are aligned with global regulatory and intellectual property protection standards.
Emerging and developing Asia performed well compared to other E&D regions, drawing more than half (53.2%) of the funds flowing into E&D countries between 2018 and 2022, according to the report.
“While advanced economies provide stability, investors seeking high-growth returns continue to show interest in emerging and developing economies,” Maggie Switek, Senior Director of the research department at The Milken Institute, said in a statement.
Among Asian E&D economies, Malaysia emerged as investors’ favorite and ranked 27th globally.
It has the “best investment conditions” among all E&D economies, and ranks well on institutional frameworks, partially due to the fact that the country “has very strong investors’ rights,” Switek said.
Malaysia is also now the sixth largest chip exporter in the world and packages 23% of all U.S. chips, according to The New York Times.
Overall, E&D regions “offer attractive opportunities to investors interested in emerging markets with favorable growth potential,” the report said.
Rising tensions between the U.S. and China, however, have hit inflows to Asian E&D economies, down 75.4% in 2022, the report added.
The world’s second-largest economy, China, came in at 39th place. “That’s actually pretty high,” Switek told CNBC’s Squawk Box Asia, adding it is still an emerging and developing Asian economy according to the IMF.
“While China attracted more than half of total capital inflows to E&D Asia between 2018 and 2022, its appeal to investors appears to have decreased recently, likely due to rising geopolitical tensions with the US,” the report said.
Here are the top 10 E&D Asian countries on the Global Opportunity Index:
- Malaysia
- Thailand
- China
- Indonesia
- Vietnam
- India
- Mongolia
- Sri Lanka
- Philippines
- Cambodia
Singapore topped Asia as investors’ favorite country in the region, and grabbed the 14th place globally. Hong Kong and Japan ranked 15th and 16th, respectively, in Asia.
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