Vordingborg Municipality has moved from 86th to 76th place in the Confederation of Danish Industry’s annual ranking of local business conditions.
The improvement is particularly clear in municipal administration, where Vordingborg rises from 84th to 51st place. This category covers, among other things, companies’ dealings with the municipality, local business services and the handling of business-related cases.
Inger Marie Scavenius, Chair of Vordingborg Business Association and co-owner of Klintholm Estate, welcomes the progress but believes there is still a need for concrete improvements in the cooperation between the municipality and the business community.
- For a company, a project is one overall investment, not simply a series of separate permits. The municipality should therefore create an overview of the entire process from the outset and handle cases in parallel where possible. That can be crucial in determining whether a project is completed on time or falls through, she says.
According to Scavenius, lengthy or poorly coordinated procedures can lead to projects being delayed or abandoned altogether. For seasonal businesses, for example, it can be crucial for a project to be completed before winter arrives or before the tourist season begins.
- The municipality should not only see itself as a public authority, but also consider how it can support the business community. At present, the process can sometimes feel rather slow, which is unfortunate because the municipality should recognise that business projects and initiatives can create growth and jobs.
In one area, Vordingborg remains at the very bottom of the ranking. In education and labour, the municipality ranks last, at number 91. Its efforts to attract qualified workers also place it 82nd nationwide.
For Inger Marie Scavenius, the challenges are closely connected. The municipality needs both more jobs and more people to fill them.
- It is absolutely essential that we attract more companies to the municipality. At the same time, we need to strengthen settlement in the area so there will also be enough workers for the new jobs. We are among the municipalities with the fewest private-sector jobs, and that trend has to be reversed. That can only happen through cooperation between the municipality and the business community.
