SYRACUSE — CenterState CEO and the Brookings Institution on Nov. 7 released a metropolitan-business plan that identifies five “key” findings with “clear” implications for “redefining the region’s economic profile.”

That’s how the organizations described the report, titled “CenterState Agenda for Economic Opportunity,” which they released during an event at Syracuse Stage.

The report, which was “developed collaboratively,” follows research conducted over the past year-and-a-half, Robert Simpson, president of CenterState CEO said during his remarks.

Simpson provided an “overview of some of the lead initiatives that we think we need to be working on … in fact, we already are working on to implement … that we think can help drive the community forward.”

The report found the region holds “strong potential to excel” in new technology fields and that growth in global markets can boost the region’s exports, CenterState CEO said in a news release about the report.

It also found the region’s innovation ecosystem is still emerging and requires new investment, and that the region must retain and expand a skilled workforce, grow economic opportunity, and develop employer-driven approaches to align workers and jobs.

The report also found that the present-day economy requires modernizing local government.

Based on the findings, the report also recommends eight strategies that are designed to drive growth, build synergies, and create “a new center of gravity for the next economy,” the organizations said in the news release.

They include positioning the region as a global center for data-to-decisions (D2D) firms, people, and ideas. That effort will include establishing the Data to Decisions Innovation Alliance to “catalyze growth through research, product, and market development and attraction of world-class talent,” CenterState CEO said.

D2D firms are working in a sector that’s a $145 billion global market that’s going to grow by another $100 billion over the course of the next five years, Simpson said.

“And our companies here, whether they be medical-device companies, environmental-technology companies, [or] cyber-security companies can compete effectively in that field,” he said.

The task of the upcoming Data to Decisions Innovation Alliance is to identify market opportunities and to understand who those customers are, who are demanding goods and services, and to connect our companies locally into those markets and into those business opportunities, Simpson said.

The strategies also include efforts to “strengthen the region’s position as a leader” in cybersecurity, thermal, and environmental-control systems, and agribusiness.

Additionally, they include efforts to grow exports and foreign-direct investment and to implement the Metropolitan Export Initiative to double regional exports in five years, the report said.

“We know this region, our 12-county geography, [with its] $8.7 billion in exports … about 11-and-a-half percent of our total economic output is coming in the form of exports,” Simpson said.

The figure is still “underperforming” the national average, which is closer to 13 or 13-and-a-half percent, Simpson said.

Since CenterState CEO started working on this initiative just a couple years ago, exports out of the Syracuse metro area have increased 28 percent increase, he adds.

The strategies also include an effort to build out an ecosystem for innovation and entrepreneurship and launch a regional seed and venture fund that would offer investment support for the region’s emerging companies.

Simpson points to the Syracuse Technology Garden, which is “100 percent occupied,” but also the ongoing work at Syracuse University and all the college and universities in the CenterState CEO footprint

Despite the demand for entrepreneurship coming from students and mid-career professionals, those involved in economic development continually stumble upon the same problem, Simpson said.

“Our region does not attract the venture funding that we need to support the long-term growth of our entrepreneurial and our innovation assets,” he added.

Simpson believes the region needs to create its own seed and venture fund because Central New York has a “growing pool of investment-ready companies,” which could benefit from such a fund to connect them to talent and markets around the globe.

The strategies also include developing employer-driven approaches to align workers and jobs; setting priorities for infrastructure investments and improvements; cultivating “opportunity-rich” environments by developing market-rate housing; and building “effective” public and civic institutions and culture, including the development of a commission on government modernization, according to the report.

CenterState CEO listed 18 organizations, including itself, Syracuse University, Mohawk Valley EDGE, and the Central New York Community Foundation, that provided financial support for the report.

The full market analysis that produced the report is available at www.centerstateopportunity.com, according to CenterState CEO.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com

The shutdown of the federal government, which lasted 16 days in October, was enough to sour consumers across upstate New York and reduce their willingness to spend money.

For the entire state, the confidence level dipped to its lowest point in nearly two years.

Consumer sentiment in upstate New York fell 6.5 points to 65.2 in October, according to the latest monthly survey the Siena (College) Research Institute (SRI) released Nov. 8.

Upstate’s overall-sentiment index of 65.2 is a combination of the current-sentiment and future-sentiment components. Upstate’s current-sentiment index of 73.1 is down 6.9 points from September, while the future-sentiment level decreased 6.3 points to 60.1, according to the SRI data.

The Upstate figure was 4.4 points below the statewide consumer-sentiment level of 69.6, which was down 6.6 points from September, SRI said.

At 69.6, the state’s consumer-sentiment level is at lowest level since December 2011, according to SRI.

New York’s consumer-sentiment index was 3.6 points lower than the October figure for the entire nation of 73.2, which was down 4.3 points from September, as measured by the University of Michigan’s consumer-sentiment index.

The shutdown of the federal government made October “like a month of two halves,” says Douglas Lonnstrom, professor of statistics and finance at Siena College and SRI founding director.

The shutdown lasted about half of the month, and consumer sentiment “went in the tank,” Lonnstrom says.

“We got a little bit of a bounce back after the government reopened [Oct. 17] and people weren’t worried about us defaulting on our bills … but certainly not enough to overcome that dismal first half,” he adds.

The SRI survey even found a decline in the consumer sentiment among New York’s various demographic groups.

They include men, women, higher income (annual salary of $50,000 or higher), lower income (annual salary of less than $50,000), under age 55, age 55 or older, Democrats, and Republicans.

“Every number on the board is negative this month,” Lonnstrom says.

For instance, the overall sentiment among older New Yorkers, women, and high-income consumers was down over eight points, according to the SRI data.

And for the highest-income consumers (those with annual salaries over $100,000), the current-confidence component dropped over 10 points.

“I can’t remember seeing a 10-point drop in one month,” he says.

When compared with the previous three years, the state’s overall-confidence sentiment of 69.6 is down 9.1 points from Oct. 2012, up 10.5 points from Oct. 2011, and has increased 3.7 points compared to Oct. 2010, according to the SRI data. The sentiment index measured 51.6 in Oct. 2008.

Besides determining consumer sentiment, SRI’s monthly survey also examines respondents’ plans for buying big-ticket items in the next six months.

In October, buying plans were down 0.3 points to 35.5 percent for consumer electronics; decreased 1.2 points to 22 percent for furniture; slid 0.6 points to 5.1 percent for homes, and fell 0.9 points to 16.4 percent for major home improvements. Buying plans remained unchanged for cars and trucks at 12.9 percent, according to the SRI data.

Gas and food prices

In SRI’s monthly analysis of gas and food prices, 59 percent of upstate respondents said the price of gas was having a serious impact on their monthly budgets, which is down from 71 percent in both September and August.

In addition, 51 percent of statewide respondents indicated concern about the price of gas, down from 57 percent in September, according to SRI.

Gas prices statewide have been a “bright spot,” Lonnstrom says, noting they’ve decreased, on average, between 20 cents and 30 cents in most places.

The percentage of Upstate respondents fell 12 points in October, and the percentage of New York respondents decreased six percentage points.

The figures still represent “significant” concern about gas prices, “but certainly a nice, big drop in one month,’ he says.

When asked about food prices, 67 percent of Upstate respondents indicated the price of groceries was having a serious impact on their finances, down from 71 percent in September. About 65 percent of statewide respondents expressed concern about their food bills, down from 66 percent in September.

SRI conducted its survey of consumer sentiment in October by random telephone calls to 750 New York residents over the age of 18.

As consumer sentiment is expressed as an index number developed after statistical calculations to a series of questions, “margin of error” does not apply.

Buying plans, which are shown as a percentage based on answers to specific questions, do have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 points, SRI said.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com