NEWS RELEASE
CITY OF BARRIE
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The City of Barrie is taking action to help the local economy recover from COVID-19. The first phase of the COVID-19 Economic Recovery Action Plan includes actions that will support the acceleration of local businesses re-opening, as well as bring employees and customers back into local establishments safely and efficiently.
“This is an evolving plan that provides clear and immediate actions as well as a roadmap to guide us through future stages of reopening as we continue to learn more about the challenges our businesses are facing and the support they require. As the roadmap unfolds, new actions will emerge,” said Mayor Jeff Lehman.
Built on the power of collaboration, the COVID-19 Business Recovery Action Plan was developed through extensive consultation with the business community and key business support organizations. More than 150 businesses, thought leaders, and organizations helped develop the plan. It lays out actions for six identified priority areas of the economy: tourism, service, construction, manufacturing, arts and culture, and Downtown Barrie. Key actions focus on the areas of entrepreneurship and innovation, digital capacity, supporting the downtown, supporting arts and culture, providing businesses with a recovery kit and advocating to both Federal and Provincial governments for ongoing financial support for businesses.
Throughout the consultation process, staff continued to deliver programs in response to business needs. To help build digital capacity, the City has partnered with Digital Main Street to offer the ShopHERE program, which helps local small businesses launch online stores at no cost.
As the economy begins to open and health regulations evolve, the needs of business will also evolve.
To ensure that the COVID-19 Economic Recovery Action Plan is meeting the needs of businesses, a re-consultation process will take place in September 2020 with the intent of providing a phase two of the recovery planning that will report back on current actions and identify further actions that the City can undertake to support economic recovery.
The COVID-19 Economic Recovery Action Plan is the second part of the overall response plan to the COVID-19 pandemic. The third component will be to deliver an action plan related to developing long-term strategies to promote business resilience. As with the response and recovery plans, this will be done in consultation with the business community.
Visit investbarrie.ca/covid-19-support for more information.
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