Community Corner

How to Improve NH's Business Climate

The Business and Industry Association released a strategic plan aimed at doing just that this week.

The Business and Industry Association of New Hampshire released a strategic plan this week containing more than 100 ways to improve the business climate in the state.

The plan, on which the BIA has worked for the past year, is the result of long-standing and growing unease about the direction of the state.

"Business leaders across the state have for several years expressed concern that, economically, many of the good things we enjoy in New Hampshire seem to happen by chance rather than through thoughtful, intentional decision making," BIA President Jim Roche said. "They feel that, absent a well-thought-out, strategic economic plan, New Hampshire’s economic assets are threatened and its vulnerabilities are further exposed."

The plan includes nine strategic goals: business growth, retention and attraction; education, workforce skills and labor pool; energy; fiscal policy; healthcare; infrastructure; natural, cultural and historic resources; regulatory environment; and workforce housing. 

To support those goals, the plan recommends more than 100 tactics. Here are a handful of them:

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  • Increase overall state investment in and streamline access to New Hampshire’s research and development tax credit to promote business investment in advanced manufacturing and high technology.
  • To meet the state’s educational needs, commit sufficient statewide resources to ensure a high-quality, lifelong educational system.
  • Explore tax credits as an alternative mechanism to the current competitive grant system to encourage energy efficiency investments. This alternative funding mechanism will give businesses greater flexibility to control their energy efficiency investments and will also reduce the potential for diversion of dedicated funds.
  • Working with the business community, find efficiencies in state government to reduce costs, including but not limited to current efforts to employ lean practices.
  • Develop and establish a regulatory framework to allow healthcare providers to collaborate, integrate and engage in collective discussions that will support lower costs, higher quality and better access to care, while preserving protection of the public’s interest, similar to state action immunity and critical public interest provisions in law in other states.
  • To maximize highway revenues, encourage public/private partnerships to improve or replace New Hampshire’s aging transportation infrastructure, such as rest areas and toll facilities.
  • Compile a master survey to measure the economic impact of New Hampshire’s natural, cultural and historic resources.
  • Explore state agency certification of outside consultants and offer incentives for businesses to contract with these consultants, which could reduce inspection costs and increase compliance with state statutes and regulations.
  • Reduce barriers to the development of workforce housing in New Hampshire by revising building codes to simplify conversion to multi-unit workforce housing.
"This strategic economic plan outlines a path forward to ensure New Hampshire’s long-term economic growth and prosperity," Roche said. "We hope elected officials, public policy leaders, nonprofit leaders and business leaders will commit to achieving this exciting vision and these critical goals for the benefit of New Hampshire."

A PDF of the entire plan is attached above.


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