Savannah Chamber

19 5 do so, but the ongoing shift in households' spending priorities from goods to services will be a headwind. In 2023, we expect cargo volumes will outpace US-GDP growth. That will be quite an accomplishment for an industry that typically moves in lockstep with the overall economy. The 2018 opening of the Appalachian Regional Port is helping the Port of Savannah tap into new markets and helps economic developers bring more projects to Georgia. The Georgia Port Authority is building a second inland container port near I-985 in Gainesville. The inland port will take up to 200,000 containers per year to the Port of Savannah by rail. The inland port is scheduled for completion in 2023. The Mason Mega-Rail Terminal at the Port of Savannah will provide more frequent and faster rail services to Midwestern cities like Memphis, St. Louis, Chicago, and cities in the Ohio Valley. The Mason-Mega Rail Terminal doubles the Port of Savannah's rail capacity, making it the largest on-dock rail terminal at any port in North America. Meanwhile, the Savannah Harbor Deepening Project is complete. The high-tide depth of 54 feet allows larger container ships to navigate the channel with fewer tidal and loading restrictions. The Port Authority's "Peak Capacity' project recently delivered 820,000 TEUs of additional capacity. The capacity is needed. At the beginning of fiscal year 2023, the Port of Savannah moved containers at an annualized rate of about 6 million TEUs per year. Plans announced by the Georgia Ports Authority call for expansion of the Port of Savannah's container capacity to 7.5 million TEUs in 2023 and to 9.3 million TEUs by 2025. Long-term plans call for the construction of a new terminal on Hutchinson Island. Many of the major distribution and logistics project announcements in 2021-22 will be building out. In 2022, Procter & Gamble announced that it would build a new distribution center in Butts County, creating 350 jobs. In 2022, Duluth Trading Company announced that it will build a new distribution and fulfillment facility in Bartow County that will create 300 jobs. In 2022, WebstaurantStore announced plans to build a new distribution center in Bryan County that will create 2113 jobs. In 2022, Ryder Systems choose Locust Grove for its new, high-tech third party- distribution center, creating 250 jobs. In 2021, Amazon announced that it would build a new fulfillment center in Savannah that will create 1,000 full-time jobs. In mid-2021, Freshly Inc. announced that it would build a new distribution center in Clayton County that would employ 665 workers. That announcement follows on the heels of an announcement earlier in the year that Freshly Inc. would build a new distribution facility in Austell that would employ 250 workers. In late 2021, multinational liner shipping company, Hapag-Lloyd selected Dunwoody for its North American headquarters, which will create about 250 jobs. Vanderlande Industries, a global logistics company, announced a 500-job expansion of its North American headquarters in Marietta. Prior to the pandemic, Georgia was on pace to have a record setting year in film production. Unfortunately, COVID-19 shut down virtually all film production for several months. After the pause, production activity resumed. The pause caused direct spending by the film industry in Georgia to decline from $2.9 billion in FY 2019 to $2.2 billion in FY 2020. Although the film industry is air-travel dependent and relatively high-contact, production recovered swiftly. Georgia's film industry set a new record of $4.0 billion in direct spending in FY 2021. Georgia's film industry spent $4.4 billion in FY 2022, another new record. Despite the economic slowdown, prospects for Georgia's film industry are very good. We expect Georgia's film industry to expand in 2023. Since the Georgia Entertainment Industry Investment Act was signed into law in 2008, direct spending by the film industry has increased from $93 million in 2007 to $4.4 billion in FY 2022. Business Facilities magazine ranks Georgia No. 1 in motion picture and television production. According to FilmLA, Georgia's film industry ranks third to California and New York in the production of feature films. Similarly, Georgia ranks third in new cable television projects, third in live action scripted series, and third in new streaming projects. The latter ranking may be of special importance because TV dramas are expected to shift from broadcast and cable networks

• Cover