Press release
Montreal entrepreneurship:
A glass that is half-full and getting fuller
Montreal, September 28, 2006 - For the third consecutive year, the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal has published its Montreal health report. This year's edition, devoted to the subject of entrepreneurship, assesses the performance of Montreal in comparison with that of eleven other North American metropolitan areas. The study was carried out with the on-going collaboration of researchers at the INRS-Urbanisation, Culture et Société and data collected for the study of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor - Canada.
After studying the issue of talent last year, the Board of Trade wished to determine how that talent was being used to create businesses in Greater Montreal. We believed it was important to take the pulse of company creation in our city, since this is an important engine of wealth creation, reports Isabelle Hudon, president and CEO of the Board of Trade.
Undeniable efforts... Questionable results
What was revealed by our diagnosis was that efforts to create companies in Montreal are doing relatively well: we are not too far off the Canadian average and are above the U.S. average. In general, Montrealers are in no way lacking when it comes to trying to launch a business, stresses Hudon.
Unfortunately, trying is not the same as succeeding, and there is a big difference between a start-up and an established company. This is where Montreal lags behind most of its competitors. And that is a major source of concern, continues Hudon.
Potential and avenues for action
Fortunately, the detailed profile of Montreal entrepreneurship drawn in this Health report confirms that there is great entrepreneurial potential to be exploited in Greater Montreal. For example, once they have passed the two-year mark, Montreal companies post very respectable survival rates. In addition, new entrepreneurs appear to be more ambitious than their predecessors: they want to create more jobs and are more interested in adopting new technologies and exporting, adds Hudon.
Given all this, we are faced with one important question: how to exploit Montreal's entrepreneurial potential to the maximum. The Board of Trade thus concludes its Health report with a series of avenues for action. Among the most important of these are providing targeted support for certain types of entrepreneurs, focusing more attention on entrepreneurs with the greatest potential for success, and reforming the fiscal environment to promote investment and reward entrepreneurial boldness, concludes Hudon.
The Montreal Health Report is a publication of the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal. Highlights of the report are published in the second October issue of L'Actualité magazine (on news stands today).
The Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal has some 7,000 members. Its mission is to represent the interests of the business community of Greater Montreal and to provide individuals, merchants and businesses of all sizes with a variety of specialized services to help them achieve their full potential in terms of innovation, productivity and competitiveness. The Board of Trade is the largest private organization in Quebec dedicated to economic development.
-30-
Source:
Sylvie Paquette
Coordinator, Media relations
Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal
Tel.: (514) 871-4000, ext. 4015
sylvie.paquette@ccmm.qc.ca
The full text of the Board of Trade's Montreal health report is available on-line at www.btmm.qc.ca/HealthReport2006
