Ballarat and its Victorian regional city cousins are looking to Spring Street and abroad for growth.
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Regional Cities Victoria, a peak body made of Ballarat and nine other regional cities, had its annual forum on Friday.
Regional Cities chairman Michael Neoh said they had broad discussions but they revolved around getting government to support the cities in the right way.
“We’ve talked about state government funding, the VET review, because education is obviously important, as a lot of us have TAFE colleges,” he said.
Councillor Neoh said Warrnambool council, where he is mayor, was leading the way on Chinese trade, with a sister city official spending a year working in the council.
“This way we’re linking SMEs and businesses that cannot (otherwise) navigate through the system. That model has turned out to be very beneficial,” he said.
The City of Ballarat has moved recently to further governmental and economic ties to Yangzhou City in Jiangsu province.
CEO Anthony Schinck said the Regional Cities forum would give them a better idea how to get into the tough Chinese market.
“(We heard) case studies from councils such as Warrnambool how we are progressing in terms of developing our trade agreements,” he said.
“It’s a focus for the state government as well, working out how we open those trade doors.”
The Regional Cities body has also presented a united front before government on the plan to continue moving whole departments or even units out of Melbourne.
Mr Schinck said the continuing campaign to bring the VicRoads head office to Ballarat formed a major part of this policy, following similar relocations to Bendigo and Geelong.
“We’re very much pushing (it) from our point of view, it’s consistent from our priorities, place-based government,” he said.
“We’re still advocating very strongly for VicRoads. But it’s a Victoria-wide activity, that brings with it a whole range of expertise.”
alex.hamer@fairfaxmedia.com.au