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Investor aids

Business

A couple of new tools, launched by the B.C. government recently, could help potential investors looking for more information about where to invest money in the province’s economy.

The BC Economic Atlas (BCEA) is a user-friendly, publicly available web-based mapping application that integrates and displays spatial economic and natural resource data to support business and investment opportunity identification, business-case analysis and investment decision-making.

Users will be able to map a variety of natural resources and economic information including natural resources data, land status, proximity to services and access to transportation, major projects inventory and employment and investment information.

“It’s exciting to see new technologies usher in new methods for government to provide services and information to people,” said Naomi Yamamoto, Minister of State for Tourism and Small Business.

BCEA was developed in a joint partnership between multiple ministries within the provincial government and cost $144,000 to build. It is designed to meet the government’s goal of providing open data to the public at no charge, said a government media release. More information is availableonline.

First Nations Economic Development Database (FNEDD), the second online tool, brings comprehensive First Nation economic activity data to the web in a searchable online format.

More than 1,100 First Nation businesses and potential business partners are registered in the online database, which also collects information from a number of public sources. The database includes details about First Nation communities, companies and economic development agreements, as well as their relationship to major projects throughout the province.

“Aboriginal businesses are growing and thriving in British Columbia,” said John Rustad, Minister of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation. “There are a great variety of successful business ventures and partnerships producing jobs and economic benefits for First Nations people and communities throughout the province.”

It was designed to help businesses and potential investors find the right opportunities and develop partnerships between Aboriginal Business and Investment Council and the ministry of jobs, tourism and skills training.

See more at: https://www.fnedd.ca/about.html.