Savannah Chamber

20 6 to streaming platforms. In addition, more original movies will be made by streaming platforms and will skip theatrical release. State incentives help to ensure that nearly all studio space is booked. The Georgia Film Academy helps to ensure that well-trained workers are available. Georgia's diversity of locations provides a good fit for a wide range of film and TV productions. Georgia is at the stage of development where new movie and film production increasingly begets additional movie and film production. As the professional, technical, and physical infrastructure becomes even more fully developed, the economic benefits of each dollar spent on film and television production in Georgia will generate larger economic impacts for our state's economy. Recent economic development projects related to film production include Reynolds Capital's investment in Athena Studios, a new soundstage project in Athens. Meanwhile, Cinelease Studios-Three Ring is expanding its studio facilities in Covington. Electric Owl Studios broke ground on a 17-acre site in Stone Mountain where Capstone Properties and Domain Capital Group will build a film and TV studio campus. United Talent Agency opened an office in Atlanta. Gray Television announced a partnership with NBCUniversal Media to develop content creation and management facilities in in Doraville. MBS Equipment Company, the world's largest studio-based equipment company, recently announced the opening of their new East Coast headquarters at Trilith Studios in Fayette County. Financial services are cyclical industries and COVID-19 was a major challenge to the industry. For example, the virus crisis caused many more people to become unemployed and miss payments on consumer loans and mortgages. Similarly, temporary and permanent business closures caused many businesses to miss payments on business loans. Banks responded by adding aggressively to their loan loss reserves. Large numbers of missed payments can lead to bank failures, but it helped that most banks were exceptionally well capitalized when the pandemic began. Compared to historical averages banks had a relatively low exposure to home loans, but a higher-than-average exposure to business loans. Banks have not failed in the wake of the pandemic-recession and we do not expect a wave of bank failures in 2023. That expectation is based on a favorable combination of high levels of capitalization and decent household balance sheets. As the economy softens, credit problems will worsen. Nonetheless, several favorable trends suggest that most of Georgia's financial institutions will weather the economic downturn relatively well. We do not expect bank failures like we experienced in the wake of the Great Recession. Demographic trends such as above-average population growth will help Georgia's financial institutions. Less positively, the downcycle in residential real estate will hurt financial institutions, but it is reassuring that almost all new mortgage loans are very well collateralized. We expect home price declines to be moderate rather than severe. It's unlikely that many people owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. The prospects for deposit growth are not as good as in recent years, but deposits are already at high levels. Some deposits will migrate to higher yielding alternatives, but most will remain with banks. An almost flat yield curve will limit financial institutions' ability to profit from borrowing short and lending long, however. In 2023, slower growth in demand for many types of loans and higher losses on loans will limit Georgia banks' profits. Despite high inflation and a weaker economy, households' credit scores are at decent levels. Credit scores will deteriorate as economic conditions worsen, however. Higher consumer spending will support some growth of non-revolving credit to households. Banks are not expected to tighten lending standards too much. Recent high levels of home sales will continue to prompt major home renovation projects, which will help support the use of home equity loans. More auto loans will add to the bottom line, but substantially less mortgage refinancing will challenge the bottom line. Georgia's leisure and hospitality industry is a high contact industry and therefore was hit extremely hard by the COVID-19 pandemic and was slow to recover. In 2022, lodging demand rose substantially, but from a depressed level. The industry will continue its recovery in 2023, but

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