Council cuts back clusters

By Yoke Har Lee

Enterprise Waitakere's financial arms have been tweaked, curtailing its ability to further the cluster development programmes on its drawing board.

In this year's budget Waitakere City Council slashed by 50 per cent the programmes it would purchase from Enterprise Waitakere. As a result the amount for cluster development was cut to $75,000 from just over $100,000 previously.

But chief executive Clyde Rodgers said cluster development remained an important pillar of the Waitakere local economic development agency.

Other economic development efforts affected include the Business Grow programme and the city's investment in tourism, Mr Rodgers said.

Waitakere has a cluster of marine companies and film-making activities. It was a location for shooting the internationally-acclaimed movie The Piano and is also the location for Hercules and Xena.

Marine companies located in Waitakere include superyacht builder Alloy Yachts International.

Because of the funding constraints, a full-time staff for cluster development was now working on a part-time basis. Enterprise Waitakere had also been looking at developing an environmental services cluster but because of the limited resources, that had been placed on the back burner, Mr Rodgers said.

Industry observers said local councils have yet to fully appreciate the value cluster development could add to economic development.

For Waitakere City, its cluster of core boat builders and others is said to employ more than 1000 with the sector being a major export earner for the city.

Brian Saipe, business cluster development specialist for Enterprise Waitakere, said: "One of the issues that tend to be consistent in cluster development analysis is the need for a collaborative marketing strategy. If cities are sincere about the need to enable clusters to accelerate sales, then there is a need for an umbrella role to be taken on by the economic development agency."

Cluster development consultant Ifor Ffowcs-Williams, who runs a company called Cluster Navigator, said although about half of New Zealand's local councils had some form of cluster initiatives, resources were stretched and most were under-funded.

He said New Zealand had no national level funding for clusters, unlike most other countries, which had actively pursued cluster development.

The New Zealand Trade Development Board had initiated the "Cluster Buster" promotion in 1997 which was later canned when Fran Wilde took over as chief executive.

She had earlier told the Business Herald that the programme was better suited for local economic development agencies to follow up on.