Alaska

Southeast Alaska has a land area of 35,138 square miles, comprised of seven boroughs and two census tracts. Currently, the population is 72,876 and there is a wide variety of industries including transportation, tourism, timber, maritime, energy, seafood, and ancillary support industries and businesses that constitute the region’s economy. In recent years, Alaska has been in a recession, due to the worldwide decline of the price of oil.

In order to assist regions in developing plans to address the unique economic challenges they face, EDA regularly provides Partnership Planning funding to support the development of Comprehensive Economic Development Strategies (CEDS). In FY 2018, EDA awarded $210,000 to the Southeast Conference to support CEDS planning and implementation efforts for Southeast Alaska.

The Southeast Alaska CEDS brought together local governments, businesses and industry, and higher education institutions to create strategies to help the region to weather the states’ recession. The strategies focus on creative approaches to advance regional community and economic development and improved quality of life. The CEDS won the Southeast Conference national recognition from the National Association of Development Organizations (NADO), which awarded the Southeast Conference an Innovation Award in 2018. Based on surveys conducted by the Southeast Conference, 135 new businesses have been started in the following CEDS priority areas: energy – 1, shipbuilding – 14, seafood – 20, tourism industry – 67 and timber – 33, and $82.3 million in private sector investment has been generated.