By CHARLES CEPULIS

BOWEN looks headed for a “Golden Decade” of prosperity following an “action-packed” transitional year for Bowen Collinsville Enterprise and the shire. BCE project manager Martin Homisan, only nine months into the job, says he is fielding treble the inquiries from south about possible local investment compared to when he started. “Bowen is now growing at 4.4 per cent a year, according to the latest
Australian Bureau of Statistics fi gures,” he said.

The town’s role in the big budget movie Australia has helped generate investor interest in the area, as has the shire forming part of the Northern Economic Triangle with Townsville and Mount Isa, the continuing coal boom and the proposed industrial precinct near Abbot Point.
“This year will be all about consolidation
and building a solid base for a ‘Golden
Decade’ of prosperity ahead of us,” Mr
Homisan said. “Ports Corporation of Queensland is already looking at Abbot Point being able to export up to 100 million tonnes,” he said.

“What the movie did is that people
looked at the Bowen shire websites and
realised how much potential there is
here,” he said. “2007 has been an action-packed transitional year for BCE and for Bowen Shire. “A number of projects have progressed signifi cantly, such as Water for Bowen, the Northern Missing Link and the Abbot Point State Development Area and industrial precinct,” he said.

“Bowen Shire is firmly on the radar of
the Australian and overseas investors.
“The expected announcement of the
Abbot Point SDA in the first quarter of
the year will be yet another milestone.”
The SDA would also see Abbot Point
becoming a common usage port.

Interestingly, the present residential
growth rate is now taking Bowen back to
the position it was in a decade ago.

“The estimated resident population of
the shire is now 13,450, which is back to
the level of 1996, before the meatworks
closed with the loss of hundreds of jobs,” Mr Homisan said.

But he warned that as the projects went
ahead, there would be pressure on the
new Whitsunday Regional Council to provide more services and to upgrade other amenities for the increased population. It would also mean present businesses would need to expand.
“BCE is looking to provide key drivers,
such as industrial land availability
and skilled labour supply to enable new
business to establish in the area,” Mr
Homisan said. “And in conjunction with the State Government, we have begun work on an investment attraction program to meet anticipated demand from investors after the SDA is officially announced,” he said.

“To attract large-scale industry, such
as Chalco, we need to provide reasonably priced power, ideally by building a new base load power station in North Queensland. “Both BCE and the shire council agree the ideal site is Collinsville, with its large resources of good quality coal and the potential water supply from the long-proposed
Urannah Dam.”