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Bing: Detroit getting better for businesses

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing said his administration is in the process of making Detroit a better place where businesses can invest their money.

“We can’t expect businesses to move into our city or expand in our city if they don’t feel safe,” Bing said Friday morning in his second annual address to the city’s business community.

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Reducing crime and creating jobs are two key priorities, said Bing, who has announced he will seek re-election in 2013. The homicide rate last year fell 15 percent, he said. “We cannot fix Detroit in one term,” he said. “I’m not sure we can fix it in two terms.”

Businesses created nearly 7,000 jobs and invested $120 million in Detroit last year, he said. Most of those jobs — 6,000 — came from major local employers General Motors Corp., Quicken Loans Inc. and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.

But medium-size companies such as GalaxE Solutions, which plans to create 300 to 500 jobs within the next few years, are also stepping up to the plate, the mayor said.

Bing, the founder and former CEO of a now-defunct steel supplier, called upon the audience at the Westin Book Cadillac and business people to look at opportunities to grow their companies in Detroit.

“I think traditionally Detroit was looked at as a city that wasn’t open for business,” Bing said.

Sandy Baruah, president and CEO of the Detroit Regional Chamber, which sponsored the event, said Bing is making Detroit a better place to do business.

“There is a new sense of optimism in Detroit,” Baruah said.

Bing pointed to the $221 million renovation of Cobo Center as something “that will make us competitive, I think, with almost any major city in the country.”

Detroit’s subpar public education system and the three generations of graduates who lack basic reading skills have created a weaker labor pool that undercuts the mayor’s goal of making Detroit attractive to companies looking to hire workers, he said. “We’re having conversations, but there are no easy answers.”

Bing is also looking beyond the city’s borders. Marketing Detroit’s assets, including its international waterway to Canada, will attract foreign investment and help ensure some of those dollars go to Detroit and not other Michigan cities, he said, citing as an example China’s desire to invest in automotive ventures.

Tags: Better, Better Businesses