IS OUR FUTURE WITH CALIFORNIA? 

It is just 470 miles south (or 750 km.) as the snow geese flies, from the southern boundary of British Columbia to the California border. A similar distance east from our B.C./Alberta boundary puts one in Fortuna, Saskatchewan.

Heading south puts us in contact with the tenth largest "country" on the planet. A US$600 billion 1989 marketplace estimated to grow to a population of 33 million by the year 2000. Go east and you find only two million people in the provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba with much lower purchasing power. Has our nationalism of the past and our east/west political orientation led us into an economic culde-sac that has to change in the coming decade? I say "yes". California is now creating 450,000 new jobs each year. Many in the sunrise communications, entertainment and new-science industries. Due to their strategic location linking American markets to the Pacific, another $100 billion worth of trade flows each year, through their seaports and airports en route to Asia. Already 2,300 foreign owned firms, employing a third of a million Californians, have seen the light and established offices there. Leading such investors are the Canadians, Japanese and British.

Canadian real estate companies, already in California, see the two-acre lot prices of between US$7 and US$10 million in Beverly Hills or Belair, moving faster than similar lots along Toronto's Bridle Path area (that recently sold to upscale eastern peasants for $3.5 million). Present Vancouver land prices, in comparision, especially to worldly-wise foreign investors, seem still at depression fire-sale levels.

In keeping with their status as the tenth largest economic entity in the world, California maintains business offices in Tokyo, London and Mexico. They plan to open others shortly in the European Economic Community and in Asia. But what may pay off even more is their awareness of just what makes the new world economy tick -- their understanding of how today, technology names the game and lays out the new rules. California has just established an Office of Competitive Technology whose mandate is to monitor the world's research and bring these discoveries to market by "forced-draft" development. Today's greatest value lies not so much in inventing or discovering new concepts, products and services as in implementing their use before the rest of the world understands how such developments will change the way we think and work. The slogan of the Industrial age was "get in on the ground floor". Today that is much too late. Now you have to "get in on the excavation".

Unlike many other regions of the United States, California offers a well-educated workforce. About 190,000 students graduate each year from Californian post-secondary colleges, 15 percent of all American graduates.

Tax exempt financing is provided by the California Pollution Control Financing Authority for companies involved in pollutioncontrol projects. Additional financing is provided under their Enterprise Zone Loan program for companies in food-processing, manufacturing and distribution businesses. Tax-exempt industrialdevelopment revenue bonds can be used by cities and counties to provide businesses with funding at reduced interest rates.

For developing new technologies, loans between US$100,000 and US $350,000 are available to finance fixed assets or working capital. This is provided under the California Innovation Development Loan Program to encourage progress in new technologies. Other loan programs provide guarantees to banks and other financial institutions that loan to small business and agricultural (including biotech agriculture) firms. Another dozen financial programs make doing business easier in California.

In Canada we travel eastward many times the distance to California before we approach the Ontario market which is less than one-third the size of one much closer, much wealthier and much warmer. In a globalized society those who restrict their thinking and movements due to political or emotional considerations will fail to achieve the greater levels of wealth and satisfaction becoming available in the communications age.

More information: Director, State of California, Department of Commerce, 1121 'L" St., Sacramento, California 95814.

Tel. 916/322-3962. Fax: 916/324-8394.

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