Businesses in Coquitlam are weathering a sluggish economy by taking out businesses licences and expanding their operations, according to economic indicators revealed in the city's latest trimester report.
The city registered 331 new businesses last year, many of them construction trades working on housing projects in the Burke Mountain area. As well, 57 inter-municipal business licences were issued as part of an initiative to cut red tape.
For Andrea McDon-ald, Coquitlam's manager of bylaw licensing and animal services, efforts to get trades licensed plus new businesses starting resulted in more business licenses being registered in 2013 than in 2012 - 6,263 compared to 5,932.
Coquitlam also made slightly more revenue from films being shot here - $55,600 in 2013 compared to $53,300 in 2012 - but is still down sharply from 2011, when the city collected $123,800 from 66 productions.
Two large commercial projects also boosted the city's building permit revenue, with construction of the Lougheed Acura Car Dealership in the city's southwest, and the Meridian Corner professional building in the northeast. As well, BFI Canada Inc., a waste management company, added a new eight-bay maintenance garage at its facility on Fawcett Road.
