Grow Monmouth' Initiative Aims To Help Businesses

The Monmouth County Department of Economic Development is gearing up to help Monmouth County businesses grow and create jobs. A new “Grow Monmouth” initiative will also actively work to attract news businesses to the county. Grow Monmouth is a long-term, community wide initiative with a singular goal – to ensure the economic health of Monmouth County. Like the New Jersey Business Action Center established by Gov. Chris Christie’s administration and overseen by Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, its objectives will include retaining and growing businesses, creating jobs and attracting new businesses. Th e plan is to gather input from a variety of key sectors that include business, education, nonprofits, community organizations, state and local government. Together, a strategic plan will be developed that will outline goals and the means of achieving them. Grow Monmouth will be launched in three phases, Phase One is development, which will include identifying our partners and establishing an Advisory Committee. Phase Two is awareness, which will include a public awareness campaign, and Phase Three is building a toolkit and facilitating progress. Th rough its partnerships, the Monmouth County Department of Economic Development will identify state incentives and financing opportunities, business advocate resources to cut through red tape and will continue to add resources to the business-building toolkit. For municipalities, the county will be offering seminars on what they can do to become more business friendly. These will be custom- tailored for those towns that want the help. “Businesses are reaching for help, and we need to empower them to create jobs” Arnone said. “I will be reaching out to interested municipalities personally to help become more business friendly.