(News1130) BC’s tech sector still booming

By Brock Hunter
As seen on news1130.com

As BC’s film industry continues to look for ways to survive, the local tech sector continues to boom.

One expert thinks it may be our province’s biggest industry soon.

The BC Technology Industry Association‘s Bill Tam says since 1993 the industry has grown from $4 billion in revenue to over $20 billion.

He’s not worried that the problems that have hit the local film industry will affect the tech sector as long as research and development is encouraged in BC.

“As well as attracting more and more talent to be here in Vancouver, I think we’re going to see the escalation of that growth curve and we could effectively be closer to about 20 per cent of the gross domestic product over the next 10 years.”

Tam says over 80,000 people are employed in the tech sector in BC at over 9,000 different companies. “We employ, now, over 85,000 people and in some ways it’s actually grown to be bigger than our resources industries in terms of people that actually work in the sector.”

Tam says that number is more than the forestry, mining and gas sectors combined.

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