About Us
The Bay of Connections is the Bay of Plenty’s Regional Economic Development Strategy, setting out the goals and priorities for sustainable economic growth in the Bay of Plenty region.
The key philosophy is to work in partnership across the region, combining industry strengths and creating critical scale to undertake larger projects that will result in greater positive impacts on the region’s economy.
The strategy initially came together following the establishment of the Government’s regional development programme, was designed to foster closer working relationships and economic strategies between collective regions.
As a result, the Bay of Plenty Regional Council led the COBoP (Community Outcomes Bay of Plenty) partnership to analyse the region's economic status and determine the benefit to the region of having a region-wide economic strategy. Business Economic Research Ltd (BERL) was commissioned by Environment Bay of Plenty to do a situational analysis of the Bay of Plenty region in June 2007. The key findings were that while each of the sub-regions has unique economic development issues, there are significant similarities, linkages and opportunities that extend across sub-regions. The report identified that a wider collaborative approach is the best way to attend to these issues and exploit these opportunities.
Following the recommendations of the BERL report and acknowledging the Government’s regional development programme, a Governance Group was established to guide the formation and implementation of a regional economic strategy and its subsequent action plans.
The first meeting of the Governance Group was held in December 2007, with the strategy developed and launched in 2008.
