KYRILLOS: ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT BILLS CAN’T WAIT FOR FALL

KYRILLOS: ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT BILLS CAN’T WAIT FOR FALL

            Business Exodus Demands Immediate Action

            Senator Joseph Kyrillos urged Governor Jon Corzine to call a Special Session of the Legislature this summer to develop a strategic plan for stemming the exodus of high-paying businesses from New Jersey:

            “Roche, the respected international pharmaceutical company that has employed more than 3,000 people in New Jersey, today offered to buy its partner Genentech for $44 billion. Within that announcement was the news that the U.S. headquarters of the combined companies would be located in San Francisco, and that the elimination of some jobs is planned.

            “Roche’s current U.S. headquarters for prescription drug development and production is in Nutley. It’s not hard to foresee that our state could be in for some job losses. New Jersey is again in danger of losing high paying private sector workers.

            “It’s clear New Jersey should have a plan in place to respond immediately when a marquee company such as Roche signals it might pull jobs out of the state. Instead, our economic development program has atrophied into a slow-moving and ineffective bureaucracy that can’t respond when the state is in danger of losing jobs or businesses.

            “There was a time when almost no pharmaceutical company would consider locating a U.S. headquarters in any state other than New Jersey. The Garden State was and is the center of pharmaceutical research and production. Drug makers had to be located within that cluster of drug companies to access this state’s unmatchable pool of talent and resources.

            “Now, in the words of author Tom Friedman, the world is flat. Information technology and the globalization of commerce let international companies locate away from historic centers of industry with little or no loss of talent or opportunity.

            “New Jersey can longer rely only on its prime location to keep high-paying businesses.  It must have a world-class economic development strategy, or risk losing high-paying businesses such as Roche or BlackRock, the manager of more than a trillion dollars of assets that is expected to move more than 1,000 jobs from Plainsboro to Philadelphia.

            “I urge the governor to call a special session this summer to consider a package of economic and stimulus bills. Tax and economic policies that are dragging down the state must be eliminated. Included on the agenda should be S-2114 and S-276, both strengthen the Business Retention and Relocation Act and the Business Employment Incentive Program.

“These bills recognize that New Jersey is in competition not just with other states, but with every nation of the world for industry and the jobs it creates.

            “It took years to erode New Jersey’s reputation as a good place to do business. It will take just a long to restore that image. We must act now because the economic future of our children and their children is at stake. I urge the governor to call an immediate special session on economic development.”

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