North Eastern Strategic Alliance Examines 2009 Plans and Prospects at Annual Board Meeting

The North Eastern Strategic Alliance (NESA), an economic development organization encompassing South Carolina’s northeast region, held its quarterly board meeting on Friday – looking ahead at the challenges and opportunities the regional organization will likely see in 2009.

The group discussed a range of issues including:
• The release of the First Quarter Regional Economic Outlook developed and presented by Drs. Don Schunk, Coastal Carolina University and Johnathan Munn, Francis Marion University.
• The recent South Carolina Department of Commerce trip to China – led by NESA board member, Rep. Douglas Jennings (D-Chesterfield and Marlboro).
• Plans for NESA’s upcoming consultant events occurring in Atlanta and Charleston as well as the organization’s 2009 business development missions set to occur in cities across North America as well as in Europe and Asia.
• The organization’s ongoing marketing, communications and business development efforts.
• The creation of a call center, regional overview and targeted marketing literature including the development of additional targeted marketing materials for plastics, manufacturing, and data centers.
• The development of a Logistics Call Model which is set to be released via the NESA website at the end of the month, and will allow companies to calculate transportation costs from NESA region cities in comparison to other cities.
• Recent successful efforts to drive traffic to NESA’s website. Last year, the average visitor to NESA’s website remained there for 22 minutes and in November alone, the site received over 65,000 hits.

“During such a challenging economic environment, it is vital for our region and this organization to remain focused on the tasks at hand, and maintain our commitment to regional growth and cooperation,” said Jeff McKay NESA’s Executive Director. “It is this type of difficult economic environment that highlights the importance of strong and proactive regional development efforts.”

The North Eastern Strategic Alliance (NESA) is a regional economic development organization that serves a nine-county region in the northeast corner of South Carolina.
NESA’s primary objective is to significantly enhance the quality of life for residents of the region by creating additional jobs and capital investment within the existing industry base as well as through recruitment of new companies and expansion of tourism related development. NESA’s nine member counties are Chesterfield, Darlington, Dillon, Florence, Georgetown, Horry, Marion, Marlboro and Williamsburg.