Category: News

In early 2017, the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program selected San Diego, along with Indianapolis and Nashville, to participate in a six-month intensive learning lab focused on inclusive economic development. During the lab, EDC worked alongside the City of San Diego, the Jacobs Center for Neighborhood Innovation, and UC San Diego extension, to develop a deeper understanding of specific barriers to economic inclusion impacting a variety of populations across the region. The outcome of the learning lab is a data-driven narrative that will inform EDC’s strategy as we work towards an economic development agenda that benefits more people, companies and communities.

San Diego is flourishing economically, with an innovation economy and a culture of collaboration that is driving growth and transformation. According to a Brookings analysis of 50 US metros, San Diego ranks 6^th in upward mobility, meaning there is a greater likelihood that an individual born into San Diego’s lowest income quartile will end up in the highest income quartile . This fact, backed by the accomplishments of a range of programmatic models and initiatives by partner organizations – Accion, Connect, CDC, Junior Achievement, to name only a few – proves the success this region has demonstrated in terms of connecting communities to the drivers of our economy.

With an unemployment rate of 3.9 percent, the region is approaching full employment, meaning companies have incentives to offer pay raises and compete for talent. However, a 2016 study by San Diego-based Center for Policy Initiatives found there are one million individuals in San Diego that are living below self-sufficiency standards. This means that one third of our population cannot afford a no-frills cost of living without public or private assistance.

A nationwide battle for talent, a soaring cost of living at home, and a growing number of San Diegans unable to make ends meet are combining to form an unequivocal threat to our regional competitiveness. We cannot afford to ignore the large parts of our region that are disconnected from the engine of growth.

EDC, with a mandate to mobilize the business community around a broad economic development strategy, has committed to mainstreaming access and opportunity for all San Diegans into that overarching strategy. Over the duration of the 6 month learning lab, EDC interviewed over 25 companies, agencies, and organizations who are engaged in innovative and impactful best practices that guide families, individuals and companies on a path towards greater economic prosperity. We hosted Brookings research teams, and worked with public, private and nonprofit partners to convene dozens of roundtables and tours across the region. And we built a data-driven narrative that outlines the costs to our competitiveness of the growing number of San Diegans without access to opportunity, networks, and skills. .

For us the work is just beginning. As the learning lab comes to a close, we begin to look at the next phase: strategy. We will continue to lean on our growing network of partners and stakeholders over the coming months as we work with and through them to craft a plan that works to make our economy more inclusive, more competitive, and more resilient. Stay tuned.

Read the full profile here.

A year ago, members of the Global Competitiveness Council – the voice of the global business community in San Diego – made a request to Mayor Faulconer: to travel internationally with World Trade Center San Diego.

And he said yes. So we decided to start our global engagement by expanding our North American relationships and traveling to Vancouver–an international city that is quicker to fly to than it is to drive to LA. And with so many similarities to San Diego, we wound up squeezing nine meetings and events into just under a day and a half.

Economically speaking, Vancouver is seen as one of the greenest cities in the world. With the Mayor’s climate action plan and the ongoing development of our cleantech industry, San Diego is fast being recognized as another one of North America’s greenest cities.

#SDinVancouver 1st stop. Announcing @TransLink issued 2M cards using SD-based @CubicTS tech. Int’l success for SD biz means jobs back home pic.twitter.com/rJgkwj5isK

— Kevin Faulconer (@Kevin_Faulconer) June 26, 2017

Some of the highlights from the trip include:

• San Diego-based Cubic Transportation Systems, in partnership with TransLink, Metro Vancouver’s transportation network, announced there were more than 2 million compass cards in circulation
• Phoenix Molecular Design, a life sciences company based in Vancouver, is actively expanding its business to San Diego and plans to grow to 15 employees within two years
• UC San Diego and University of British Columbia (UBC) formulized the HIBAR initiative, designed to connect their faculty to their communities to tackle problems around sustainability and climate change
• San Diego State University became the only California university accepted into the International Sustainability Campus Network, joining UBC and other top tier universities around the globe
• SDG&E and BC Hydro, British Columbia’s energy utility, participated in a clean energy forum
• Planck Aerospace, a San Diego-based drone startup, was able to pitch its technology to the Port of Vancouver
• A smart cities forum led by Qualcomm and Wavefront, the Canadian center for mobile and IoT technology, and other telecommunications/Iot companies

Out on the water in Vancouver. #SDinVancouver #SanVan pic.twitter.com/cfKdq4C3A1

— Planck Aerosystems (@planckaero) June 27, 2017

And we made it back to San Diego just in time to celebrate Canada’s 150 birthday.

World, get ready. San Diego is coming for you.

Learn more about the trade mission by checking out #SDinVancouver

The California Competes Tax Credit is an income tax credit program available to businesses expanding or relocating to California. Created in 2014 by the California legislature and overseen by Governor Jerry Brown’s Office of Business and Economic Development, the California Competes Tax Credit is divided into three separate rounds for each fiscal year. In FY 15-17, more than 270 companies were awarded more than $204 million in tax credits.

In all three rounds this year combined, 30 San Diego companies earned more than $20 million in income tax credits – claiming 10 percent of the total tax credits awarded in FY 16-17. In return, these San Diego companies have committed to $242 million of investments and 1,408 new jobs totaling more than $340 million in wages by 2021.

In the third and final round that took place this June, San Diego companies were awarded about $3 million in tax credits, making up five percent of the total $59 million awarded across the state. For each round of the program, businesses are categorized as either small or large, with credit amounts distributed to both groups. During the June round, San Diego small businesses made up 1.79 percent of the total tax credits – totaling $1.05 million – while large companies made up 3.73 percent of the total, or $1.9 million.

The Cal Competes program will open its first round of the FY 17-18 on July 24, in which $75 million of this year’s $250 million is up for grabs. If your business is considering relocating to, or expanding in, California, we encourage you to leverage the program as tool to reduce your tax liability. The EDC team stands by to assist with applications, as we have with many other San Diego companies.

Attend an upcoming workshop in Vista or Oceanside to learn how your business can apply for a tax credit, or contact Jesse Gipe for more information.

The 2017 BIO International Convention, the world’s leading biotechnology conference, came to San Diego in June and brought with it more than 16,100 attendees from 74 countries. While here, many of these delegations – comprised of venture capitalists, foreign dignitaries, private companies and others – send hundreds of meeting and/or tour requests to local businesses and organizations.

WTC San Diego, in partnership with Biocom, launched discoversdbio.com in order to streamline such requests. In this pilot year, the website handled requests from 32 delegations, representing 388 people. More than 75 percent of these delegations consisted of companies seeking partnership opportunities with locals such as JLABS, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Renova Therapeutics and more.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) is an integral part of San Diego’s life sciences cluster. In Q1 2017 alone, San Diego’s life sciences cluster received more than $1.7 billion in FDI – more than 75 percent of the region’s total FDI during that quarter. Strategically implementing tools such as this website helps local companies vet future opportunities.

Moving forward, partner organizations can leverage the website to connect visiting delegations with local businesses and institutions.

This op-ed was originally published by San Diego Union-Tribune, and authored by Matt Cole, Magda Marquet and Michelle Sterling.

This is a time of profound disruption in the global economic system: The rules of global commerce are shifting rapidly, the pace of innovation and competition is generating winners and losers, and political volatility around the world is creating an uncertain environment for businesses large and small.

Now, more than ever, it is time for cities to step up and lead. And to lead, they must be seen.

For San Diego companies, global connectivity matters. Whether it’s biotech or manufacturing, most businesses have customers outside of San Diego, which allows them to add jobs here at home. In 2015, San Diego exported more than $17 billion in goods overseas, as well as billions more in services like software, cybersecurity, engineering and research. Small- and medium-sized businesses produce 92 percent of those goods. According to the Brookings Institution, companies that are global pay higher wages, are less likely to go out of business and increase productivity of the domestic market.

Our competitive advantage here in San Diego is that we develop and produce life-saving and life-changing technologies better than almost anywhere else in the world.

Four years ago, Althea was a midsize life sciences company with great talent and a compelling business proposition. A personal relationship, and chance meeting at a trade show, began a relationship with Japanese multinational Ajinomoto that has drawn millions of dollars of investment into the region, and enabled Althea to become a global player in the development and manufacturing of biologics and innovative pharmaceuticals.

For Cubic Transportation Systems (CTS), a business unit of Cubic Corp., providing public transportation solutions is one example of where public-private partnerships can be applied. From Chicago to Sydney, Vancouver and London, Cubic-powered technology and services move 38 million people seamlessly on a daily basis. This form of service requires collaborative working relationships between metro governments, transportation authorities and the private sector. And more often than not, these relationships need to be built over time by political and civic leadership to be effective.

Most San Diegans know the name Qualcomm but are less familiar with the transformative impact that the company has had in the world through its innovation in wireless technologies that power the global economy. What started in 1985 as a startup co-founded by a UC San Diego professor has grown into a company that has invented the technologies that make smartphones indispensable in our lives. With each technology Qualcomm invents and with each employee it hires, people from Brazil to China are learning how San Diego is changing the world.

The 600 largest cities in the world account for 60 percent of the global economy, and that economy is increasingly crowded, confusing and contested. Metros need strong leadership, unified voices and targeted strategies to compete. This is why mayors around the world are uniting to take on big issues like climate change, trade and poverty. It is why the mayors of every major U.S. city are on the road like never before, opening doors for the expansion of their regional economies. It is why we, as the Global Competitiveness Council — the voice of the global business community here in the San Diego region — called on Mayor Kevin Faulconer to be on the road to help out.

The mayor responded to this call by the business community, and is traveling to Mexico City, Vancouver and London in 2017 to create civic and academic partnerships, to facilitate deals that create jobs for San Diegans, and, most importantly, to create a framework for engagement with our most important markets. Our hope is that companies of all sizes seize the opportunities the mayor is creating.

We know what an innovative, collaborative and life-changing place San Diego is; but now more than ever, we need our leadership telling that story here at home and around the world. Our economy depends on it.

Cole is president of Cubic Transportation Systems. Marquet is co-founder of Ajinomoto Althea and AltheaDX. Sterling is executive vice president of human resources at Qualcomm.

Mayors of every major U.S. city are on the road like never before, opening doors for the expansion of their regional economies.

In just the first half of 2017, the region has seen the official launch of two direct flights, of which WTC San Diego and EDC have assisted the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority in attracting: Condor Airlines’ direct service to Frankfurt, Germany and Edelweiss’ direct service to Zurich, Switzerland.

This week, Edelweiss launched its inaugural flight. WTC and EDC assisted in hosting a private luncheon earlier this year with Swiss-owned and San Diego-based companies seeking business opportunities in Switzerland. Switzerland is an important market for San Diego, especially for the life sciences industry, with more than $1.6 billion in investment from Switzerland.

EDC is proud to take part in the BIO International Convention, the largest life sciences convention in the world, hosted right here in San Diego from June 19-22.

Join us Monday, June 19 as we celebrate the region’s ever-growing life sciences cluster. Here’s how:

• 1:00 – 2:15pm: Panel event for the launch of EDC’s economic impact report on San Diego’s genomics industry. Details here.*
• 5:00 – 7:00pm: San Diego Innovation Council Reception. Register here.

*must be registered for BIO to attend.

San Diego knows how to build companies that the rest of the world values. Case in point: Last month, El-Cajon based Calbiotech, a diagnostics company, was acquired by ERBA Mannheim, a medical device manufacturer based in Mannheim, Germany.

In 2016, Calbiotech was part of MetroConnect, World Trade Center San Diego’s flagship export assistance program. As part of the 2016 cohort, Calbiotech received financial and programmatic resources to support their plans to expand internationally.

Calbiotech has a global footprint of more than 200 products, which are distributed to 60 countries worldwide. With the expansion announcement, Calbiotech will maintain its footprint in San Diego because of the access to key reference labs and other biotech customers throughout the region. It will also serve as ERBA’s hub and gateway to the Latin American market.

The company was referred to the MetroConnect program by Jo Marie Diamond, head of the San Diego East County Economic Development Council. “I’ve been working with Calbiotech for years,” said Diamond, “They are representative of everything positive about the San Diego economy – a focus on innovative products, a strong sense of commitment to the community, and an incredibly grounded and highly diverse team.”

“We’re excited to hear of Calbiotech’s next step and were very impressed with the company during their time in MetroConnect”, said Lauren Lindner, director of World Trade Center San Diego who oversees the MetroConnect Program. “Their team was incredibly savvy in their rollout to international markets, and we’re not surprised to see that a leader like ERBA took notice.”

“San Diego, and specifically East County, have been an integral part of the Calbiotech success story,” said David Barka, Vice President. “San Diego is home to companies that are leading the world in innovation in science and medicine. Being in San Diego gave us access to an amazing talent pool that really helped our company grow.”

The acquisition will help Calbiotech increase access to markets across Europe and Asia add to EBRA’s extensive and far-ranging product portfolio.

M&A is an important growth strategy and capital source for San Diego companies. According to a 2016 EDC study, nearly 70 percent of San Diego’s capital in 2015 came through M&A.

Calbiotech’s acquisition mirrors the region’s strengthening ties with Germany, including the announcement of Condor’s new direct flight to Frankfurt, Germany, which began operation on Monday, May 1.

Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Applications for the MetroConnect 2017 round are now open. To apply, click here.