Colorado is fine-tuning and accelerating the rollout of its new economic- development plan under changes expected to be announced today by Gov. John Hickenlooper.
Revisions to the “Colorado Blueprint” include identifying local infrastructure needs, tighter timelines for implementing the plan, and more emphasis on trade with Canada, Mexico and Japan.
Since January, state officials have been soliciting public input for a “bottom-up” economic-development strategy intended to allow counties and regions to promote their own approaches and goals.
“The plan coordinates state-government resources, facilitates more robust regional strategic plans and creates industry cluster work groups to better focus efforts on growing jobs in Colorado,” said Ken Lund, executive director of the Office of Economic Development and International Trade.
Lund said a main change to the blueprint is accelerating from nine months to three months the identification of industry clusters to target for relocation and expansion.
“There is a recognition that the key industries that drive our economy need to be identified and worked with more quickly than (originally proposed) in the draft,” he said.
State officials will work with the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp. and consultant PricewaterhouseCoopers to identify the industry clusters.
The Colorado Blueprint is the result of more than 50 meetings and comments from more than 13,000 people in all of the state’s 64 counties.
The plan consists of six broad initiatives comprising 24 action items such as cutting red tape, making small- business loans easier to obtain, and developing cultural tourism and agritourism in Colorado.
Steve Raabe: 303-954-1948 or sraabe@denverpost.com
