Quake’s “lucrative” Geelong opportunities

A $45 billion project to rebuild earthquake-ravaged Christchurch offers “lucrative opportunities” for Geelong, according to an engineers network representative.
Kevin Foard said the project had numerous supplier shortages, covering everything from temporary accommodation facilities to quantity surveyors.
The 15-year project would construct 800 commercial buildings, 25,000 homes and replace more than 400 kilometres of roads, he said.
Mr Foard visited New Zealand with other Australian business representatives on behalf of Engineering Network Geelong (ENG), an arm of the city’s manufacturing council.
“We saw a number of potentially lucrative opportunities for Geelong businesses and had meetings with several NZ and Australian companies looking for partners to provide additional capacity or capability.
“For instance, a major NZ builder needs easily erected temporary accommodation and we’re talking to an Australian company about supplying fit-out items or even a complete market-ready product.
“ENG is also in discussions with a Christchurch engineering business around supplying high-end fabrications in stainless steels and alloys. A NZ regional business is interested in talking to us about joining forces to provide products and services to the Christchurch rebuild across NZ and Australia.”
Mr Foard said builders working on the quake project were seeking products and services that reduced labour and material requirements to “ultimately save time and money”.
“We’ll be looking at these areas very closely to see what opportunities there are for our membership over the phase of the recovery project.”
Magnitude 7.1 and 6.3 earthquakes struck Christchurch in late 2010 and early 2011, killing 185 people.