Lord Mayor's Column: Wollongong’s transformation to a diverse, resilient and strong economy

With the Illawarra Shoalhaven set to be the fastest growing region in NSW, Wollongong’s Economic Development Strategy 2025 – 2035 will ensure our city is best placed to take advantage of the momentum and transformation Wollongong has experienced over the last decade and create a diverse, resilient and strong local economy.

At our next Council meeting (15 December) Councillors will be asked to endorse this ten-year strategy which sets out a new target of 20,500 net new jobs by 2035.  This plan ensures that our city remains ‘open for business’, supports growth and investment and provides new and existing local businesses the environment to flourish over the next decade.

To do this, we are working with all levels of government and with industry to advocate on behalf of the city to ensure we have a sufficient level of investment in infrastructure to support increased population growth, housing supply and the need for more jobs in our city. No small task.

It was fantastic to see the announcement by the NSW Government this week of the official rezoning of Bluescope’s 200 hectares of non-operational land which is a key milestone for the Port Kembla Land Transformation project. This is a game-changer for the Illawarra, unlocking opportunities for investment and development and delivering up to 20,000 jobs for the future.

We are working to foster strong relationships and build partnerships that enable investment to occur in our city. This is evident through our work on the Tourism Accommodation Strategy and our work with industry to incentivise tourism accommodation development to attract more hotels in our city. We have also included incentives to attract a cinema, for which many in the community have expressed a strong desire.

This also ties into the work that we are doing to advocate for a Cruise Terminal to be located here in Wollongong at the Port at Port Kembla. We know that only around 1% of cruise passengers are from countries outside of Australia and New Zealand so Wollongong provides the perfect location for a turnaround port for Cruises that attract domestic tourists. I was pleased to see recent media reports from the cruise industry supportive of Wollongong’s claim as the right location for the next NSW terminal.

We are only an hour’s drive from Sydney, have three airports all within an hour of the Port and good rail and road connections that can provide passengers the flexibility to choose how they get to and from the Port to jump on board a cruise, while also providing them with ample accommodation options and attractions to stay in our region either before or after a cruise.

We have so much to offer - it is these types of initiatives that make our city even more attractive and have the potential to bring new investment and jobs, visitors and more major events to our city to support our local businesses.

I am proud of our new Economic Development Strategy, it shows that Wollongong is stepping up and taking the lead in driving economic growth opportunities and advocating not only for the city but for the wider region to ensure that our local economies remain strong and diverse to support local jobs now and into the future.

You can view Wollongong’s Economic Development Strategy here.