The Logan Chamber of Commerce has held our AGM and we welcome new committee members and thank exiting committee members for all their volunteer hours towards the improvement of the Logan business community.
Your Chamber of Commerce is more than networking, one of our key functions to advocate on behalf of and for business.
There are several important issues facing all businesses now such as the interest rate rises, the cost of production rise, import times, export times, and the effect that all this has on the community’s ability and willingness to spend.
Many of our members have noticed that discretionary spending has already been cut through delays in household renovations, no new car, less travel, holidays not taken, meals out, movies, and other entertainment.
One of the first items to get taken off the household budget is dining out or takeaways.
Adversely, the costs to those businesses have increased because of the rising cost in food production, transportation, utilities, and wages.
Hospitality alone has had a 10 per cent increase in the award wage in the past 12 months (pay rate increase October 2022, pay rate increase in July 2023).
This is just one challenge facing an industry that is predominantly filled with sole traders / family businesses.
What of other industries?
The car industry is faced with long delays for new cars to arrive.
A customer may order a car in February and not see it for 18 months, and that’s if you are buying a new car.
Remember those days when you could walk in the car yard and say, I’ll have that one in ‘x’ colour, and it would be ready within a week!
What does this mean for the car sales industry?
Is there a solution?
Will interest rate rises cease?
Will the cost of living stabilise?
Will wages catch up / keep up with these increases?
Out of 20,000 businesses registered in Logan, 99 per cent of them are registered as small businesses.
Our local economy is based on small businesses doing great business in Logan.
They do great business with community support and patronage.
To use the Logan City Council tag #thinklocalbuylogan.
