TORONTO, October 04, 2022 — Today, the Toronto Region Board of Trade’s World Trade Centre Toronto announced its upcoming delegation to Amsterdam, where it will engage with partners across the Schiphol Airport (October 12-13, 2022).
Toronto’s Pearson Economic Zone is anchored by an international airport and home to a significant cluster of manufacturing, logistics, and warehousing companies. Providing 300,000 jobs across four municipalities, it contributes significantly to the regional economy spanning across Greater Toronto Hamilton Area, Waterloo and Guelph, and shares many similarities with Schiphol Airport area.
Schiphol has successfully evolved into a regional economic engine, much like the area surrounding Pearson International Airport.
The Airport Economic Zones Exchange Program will provide bilateral opportunities to examine these similarities and discuss challenges and potential solutions that will aid the development of both zones, as well as explore opportunities for economic engagement in the Schiphol Airport area.
The delegation will also seek to learn from the Schiphol region’s achievements, share our own success stories, and brainstorm solutions to other challenges.
“This is an exciting opportunity for genuine collaboration and learning with another world-class airport economic zone that shares similar characteristics to that of the Pearson Economic Zone,” said Leigh Smout, President, World Trade Centre Toronto. “It’s only through hyper collaboration with a like-minded region that we can truly learn from each other and identify opportunities for improvement, growth, and competitiveness.”
- Climate Economy: Identify opportunities to leverage low carbon solutions to address shared competitiveness challenges and ESG goals
- Logistics: Develop more fluent mobility strategies to support movement of goods as local demands grow
- Mobility: Explore solutions to solve connectivity issues within the zone at three levels of transportation: long distance, mid distance, and last mile
The Pearson Economic Zone represents:
- Second largest employment concentration in Canada (after downtown Toronto)
- Chokepoint of congestion, costing $11 billion in lost productivity
- Lacking integration of transit and mobility to attract and retain workers
- Over 50 per cent of workforce come from equity-deserving communities
- Significant contributor to regional GHG emissions
- Product of fragmented governance structures
The Toronto Region Board of Trade is one of the largest and most influential business chambers in North America and is a catalyst for the region’s economic agenda. We pursue policy change to drive the growth and competitiveness of the Toronto region and facilitate market opportunities with programs, partnerships and connections to help our members succeed – domestically and internationally.
For media inquiries, please contact:
Andrew Perez
Media Relations Manager
Toronto Region Board of Trade
media@bot.com
647-290-2171
The World Trade Centre Toronto (WTC-T) is the Board’s trade services arm. As an award-winning member of the World Trade Centers Association, WTC-T creates unparalleled global access for the Toronto region’s business community with its connection to 326 branded properties and trade services associations in 92 countries and 321 cities. WTC-T provides targeted international trade advisory services and expertise through comprehensive research, trade education, strategy building workshops, trade missions and valuable connections to experts and networks. Follow us on Twitter @WTC_TO and on LinkedIn.
