Key Industries & Sectors

In 2007, Chatham-Kent Economic Development Services undertook an update to their economic development strategy. This strategy is a road map for the Municipality and its partners that shows how we can work together to create employment, encourage new investment and enhance our quality of life. The Strategy outlines the vision of what we want our community to become and gives us guidance on what we need to do to maximize our success.

Based on the economic research and community consultation that was completed as part of the Strategy development, the following target sectors are being pursued:

• Agriculture

• Advanced Automotive Parts Manufacturing

• Business Process Outsourcing

• Next-Generation Energy

• Retail/Commercial

• Tourism

Our community has traditional and new found strengths in the agriculture, energy and automotive parts manufacturing sectors. We will aim to continue to grow these industries. Chatham-Kent already has a base of companies in these sectors that create a unique opportunity for “convergence clustering”. This area of convergence, in particular, needs to be exploited. Examples of this are developing and manufacturing car parts out of crops grown in local fields and producing energy that uses local inputs.