June 2013
| Business World Magazine | 135
is shipped outside the state within 175 days.
All companies who had goods coming and
going in such fashion were previously being
taxed on it. Fowler says it took over a year
(which he considers record time) to secure
the Free Port Exemption, but that not only
benefits Caterpillar, but all companies across
the board, in fact, for one local company
already established in Victoria, the savings
amount to more than $500,000 a year. Fowl-
er says it was all in the timing. “We have to
have this big tax base coming into our com-
munity which helped offset any risk from no
longer collecting the taxes we were.”
The Port of Victoria operations are, as
Fowler says, another example of visionary
leadership and proactive planning for the fu-
ture. Conceived more than a 60 years ago,
Fowler says, “For those guys who thought
about dredging a 35 mile-long canal to cre-
ate a waterway that leads to our communi-
ty... that took a lot of guts and vision to do
that, but today we’re really reaping benefits
because they did.”
As for the implementing of new incen-
tives allowing for quicker permitting and
tax breaks, Fowler says the development of
such infrastructure helps demonstrate the
cooperation fostered between government
and business. “So much of economic devel-
opment is about relationships, and when a
company arrives, there’s no time to develop
relationships at that point, they have to be
already in place.”
Caterpillar completed
