Charles Gray
WTOC-TV
It’s not every day the mayor of Savannah has a chat with the mayor of a foreign city. But he sat down Monday for a videoconference with the mayor of Vaxjo, Sweden, from Savannah’s Stage Front Production Systems.
The mayors were introduced by Chris Miller, executive director of the Creative Coast, which has been working on the Vaxjo-Savannah connection; Miller is now in Sweden with a delegation of local business leaders, who are working on a new partnership between the two cities to exchange business and technology.
We caught up with Miller last week before he left, who told us why he’s so excited about the project.
“The whole goal, at the end of the day, the Creative Coast is about growing and attracting jobs,” he said. “It’s about making Savannah better through creating a higher-wage economy. And one way to do that is to attract really smart people doing smart things. And honestly, I don’t care where they come from as long as they’re coming to Savannah, they’re growing jobs, they’re contributing to our economy and they’re enjoying our great quality of life.”
During today’s videoconference, WTOC had the opportunity to ask Mayor Bo Frank of Vaxjo why he thought the project was important.
“I think it’s quite unique in Sweden to have this kind of business relation, this kind of business to business with another city,” Mayor Frank told us. “I haven’t heard of it so far, so it’s quite unique. And this will also interest very many companies in Sweden.”
Local leaders say that each community will work to make it easier for the other to do business there. To do that, they’re working to create what they refer to as reciprocal “landing pads.”
“That entails having a site that’s available for them start out, having people here who understand how the system works here and can sort of mentor them through,” explained Mayor Otis Johnson of Savannah. “And to also help them find partners, suppliers, financing. Whatever it takes to help them be successful in coming to Savannah.”
“If you’re looking at the US, the world’s largest market, by the way, from a long distance,” said Miller, “you want to come to a place where there’s a lot of raw talent and students. You want to come to a place that has infrastructure. But most importantly, you want to come to a place where people are willing to help you.”
They’ll find that in Savannah, according to Mayor Johnson, who told his Swedish counterpart, “We can learn from each other, and I’m really excited about the partnership.”
The relationship’s already working for Savannah-based Digitus Biometrics, which is the first Savannah company to make a deal in Vaxjo.
“We actually, through this relationship with the Swedish delegation a couple weeks ago, we actually received some sales and shipped them and got paid for them,” the company’s Claude Galipeault told us last week before departing with Miller on the trip to Sweden.
Digitus makes high-end security systems and has already sold two overseas. “We’re going there to see if we can find someone to be our distributor, an implementer of our technology,” said Galipeault, who thinks of Vaxjo as a gateway into the European Union.
And local leaders say we can also expect new Swedish businesses to come here. “What we’re doing is we’re lowering the cost and lowering the risk and increasing the opportunities for people that wish to grow into the US market,” said Miller. “They’re going to do that using the resources that we have here and hiring Savannahians to develop their products and to move their products into the US market.”
And everybody at today’s videoconference says it’s a win-win situation.
Both parties are also expecting to be able to learn a lot from each other. One of the things the Swedes bring to the table: environmentally friendly industry. Local leaders hope that will one day mean new, non-polluting industry for the Coastal Empire, as well as new business for the Port of Savannah.
