PrintPrintFour of the state’s top executives predicted at a summit Wednesday night that South Carolina’s recovery from the recession is likely to be slow and difficult. The roundtable discussion for the Carolina Business and Economic Summit was part of the Carolina Business Review TV program hosted by Chris William. It will be broadcast on ETV, but no date has been set.
By Mike Fitts
mfitts@scbiznews.com
Published Nov. 5, 2009
South Carolina’s recovery from the recession is likely to be slow and difficult, according to state business leaders who gathered Wednesday night for a business summit at ETV’s studios in Columbia.
Four of the state’s top executives appeared at a roundtable discussion for the Carolina Business and Economic Summit.
The panel brought together Harris Deloach of Sonoco Products, Darla Moore of the Palmetto Institute, Ed Sellers of BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina and Bill Timmerman of SCANA to talk about the state’s economic and leadership challenges.
Moore disagreed with the idea that a recovery is starting here yet. She called an S.C. recovery “one of the greatest challenges of our lifetime now,” with high unemployment and a huge decline in tax revenues. A comeback could take five to seven years, Moore said.
“That is going to take a tremendous economic engine,” she said.
Sonoco has seen some evidence of recovery in its global business since May or June, Deloach said. That’s evidence of Sonoco’s diversity — businesses and innovation, two things that more S.C. companies must embrace, Moore said.
The business leaders bemoaned the lack of focused leadership in the state. Sellers said that top government and business leaders need to bang out a common agenda and stick together to push it through. That has happened in North Carolina, he said, but the Palmetto state has not gotten its act together.
Sellers and Moore both criticized the Legislature’s last effort at tax reform, including the rollback of residential property tax for homeowners.
That bill “could not have been more devastating” to education and the state’s finances, Sellers said. It also shifted too much of the tax burden onto business. The state instead needs comprehensive tax reform and must allocate its limited resources in areas that are effective in stimulation of growth, several panelists said.
Boeing’s decision to locate in the state is a tremendous win for South Carolina that we ought to “celebrate the heck out of,” Timmerman said. He added, however, that the state has to keep up its hunt for more successes like it.
Long-term recruitment has to be pursued vigorously around the world, Timmerman said, noting that the economies of some countries, such as China, are not in recession now, and could provide investment capital for our state.
To raise S.C. wages long term will require better productivity, Sellers said, and effective education of the work force is the best way to do that.
The one-hour discussion for the Carolina Business and Economic Summit, which was part of the Carolina Business Review TV program hosted by Chris William, will be broadcast on ETV, but no date has been set.
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