Manufacturing an important focus in South Gippsland

WHILE South Gippsland Shire is strongly associated with agriculture, council continues striving to ensure manufacturing is also well supported and further opportunities are created in that sector, something Mayor Nathan Hersey recently highlighted in his Sentinel-Times column.

Chatting about the importance of the manufacturing sector, Cr Hersey said it accounts for about $740 million worth of the Shire’s economic output, which equates to 18 percent of the overall local figure.

Councillors and council’s executive leadership team recently spent a day visiting a few of the 140 manufacturing businesses in the shire.

Burra Steel’s Korumburra-manufactured extraction fans are sold around Australia and overseas, with the mayor describing the experience as “interesting and a really good success story”.

A stop at Burra Brewing also took place, with the business having now received the ‘Best Gippsland Hospitality Business Award’.

With the small but efficient brewery producing a range of beer types, canning and packaging, as well as opening to the public, Cr Hersey described it as an ‘impressive setup’.
Leongatha’s GEM Industries was also visited.

“They’re doing poly pipe and its installation,” Cr Hersey said, adding that those poly pipes are up to two metres in diameter enabling them to be used in major projects.

The council contingent also spent time at Schreurs & Sons in Tarwin Lower, a business that blends agriculture and manufacturing, processing and packaging fresh produce such as celery that can be purchased loose or cut and packaged.

Cr Hersey stressed that while the recent day trip for councillors and the executive leadership team provided just a small example of current local manufacturing, council’s economic development team is available to assist all manufacturers throughout South Gippsland Shire.

“The economic development team is working all the time with interested businesses and also having discussions with businesses to try and promote what it means to work in a rural community and the benefits of that,” he said.

The mayor noted GEM Industries provides a good example of the benefits that can flow from a South Gippsland location.

“Their product is hardly used locally but they stressed the quality of employees they can get from South Gippsland, the way they can operate easily from the Leongatha Industrial Estate and work at a local level while producing for the country,” he said.

The mayor said that manufacturing in the shire currently employs about 1,000 people directly and that efforts are being made to create further opportunities.

“We’re looking at our industrial land supply strategy at the moment,” Cr Hersey said, saying the aim is to identify ways to increase availability of such land, particularly in places such as Leongatha, Korumburra and Foster.

An external consultant is currently assessing the situation regarding industrial land availability and will report to council, something that is expected to happen later this year.

Land that could be developed to support industrial use is being determined, with potential for some land to be identified for possible rezoning to open further opportunities for manufacturing.

Cr Hersey said there is potential for future manufacturing in South Gippsland to support local agriculture, whether through food processing or other areas such as engineering and metal fabrication that can produce items needed by those in the agricultural sector.

“The economic development team are looking at businesses that can value add to or support our agricultural sector; it makes sense to support our largest industry, being agriculture,” he said.