Utah's economy is on an upswing if the activities of the Economic Development Corp. of Utah are any indication.
The public/private partnership that promotes the state and provides economic data and contacts to help attract and grow companies has had a busy 2004.
Christopher Roybal, EDCU's president and chief executive officer, said the most recent July-through-June fiscal year yielded "a twofold set of numbers."
"The first half of the year we were still kind of in a recession, but since Jan. 1 of '04, we've seen a significant increase in activity," he said during the organization's annual meeting Thursday. "Just to give you some idea, the past six months, we've taken in more recruitment activity inquiries than in the last 2 1/2 years. So we think that's good news. Our numbers show a combination of coming out of the recession and then increased activity since Jan. 1."
During the fiscal year, EDCU's researchers fielded 520 inquiries — two-thirds of them from Utah businesses — conducted 54 operating cost analyses, 46 retail analyses, nine economic impact analyses and 94 requests for links to suppliers.
Its business recruitment staff coordinated 31 site visits, up from 20 the previous year. And the EDCU is tracking 60 out-of-state projects considering Utah for operations, which need a total of 8.2 million square feet of office space and 3.5 million square feet in industrial space.
"So there's a lot of activity. There's much more in the pipeline now. We expect that the next 12 to 18 months should bear a lot of fruit here in Utah, so we're excited about what's taking place," Roybal said.
He cited Inline Plastics Corp. as a typical recruited company. The Connecticut-based company put operations in Utah because of its central location in the West, offering the company easy access to Western and especially California markets.
EDCU is targeting biotechnology, aerospace, information technology and financial services industries this year because they pay higher-than-average wages. California will continue to be a prime location for EDCU efforts, he said.
"With the world's sixth-largest economy just an hour-and-a-half plane ride away, we think that's where we ought to be spending most of our time, both in the office and industrial recruitment areas," he said.
As strong as the 2003-2004 numbers were, Roybal predicted improvement for the current fiscal year as numbers for business recruitment, research assistance and job growth rise.
"We also think we're starting to gain some critical mass in some of these industry sectors — biotech, IT, financial services," he said. "We're much more on the map nationally than what we were, say, two or three years ago, and we think we're going to start driving some activity there as well."
E-mail: bwallace@desnews.com