KPBS Anchor Maya Trabulsi and BottomLine Marketing co-founder and SDSU marketing lecturer Miro Copic discuss some of the business stories to watch nationally and in San Diego in 2020.
Q: We're doing something a little bit different this week for the Friday Business Report with a look ahead to 2020. From jobs, to trade, to growth; can you talk to us about the outlook for the year ahead?
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A: Well next year is going to be really anchored by the election, both nationally and locally. At the national level, last year at this time we were in a very pessimistic mood. There was a government shutdown. The market had been down 20% in the fourth quarter. Consumer confidence was a little bit thin. There was a lot of uncertainty, but the year turned out to be much better and stronger than than than experts had predicted.
At the end of the year we still have very low unemployment. Growth has slowed down considerably, but it's still positive growth. So that's great for 2019. So what happens in 2020? Well we're still seeing some some areas of concern. And I think one of the things that we have to think about is first and foremost we haven't resolved the trade wars, even though there was some progress in the last couple of weeks with China.
The other things that we have to be on lookout for in 2020 is business and consumer confidence. Also, the stock market. A lot of stock market analysts are saying that the gains that we saw in 2019 certainly won't be repeated in 2020. So it'll be a more muted year in 2020. But there shouldn't be a recession unless there's something really large and external that creates an issue for for the U.S. economy it's been very resilient.
Q: When it comes to San Diego, what are some of the big stories that you are going to follow for 2020?
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A: First and foremost is the vote in the convention center. If if that passes, that will allow the city to expand the convention center. It's going to guarantee that we're gonna keep Comic-Con for a long time to come. We're gonna be able to attract much larger conventions and really make San Diego a true world class city.
Secondly, the U.S. Mexico Canada free trade agreement. We talked last week about the border crossing and greater investment on both sides of the border. One of the things out of that agreement was the Tijuana River Valley area will be cleaned up. That's going to be great for the city of San Diego. There will be no sewage spills or much fewer sewage spills. Beaches won't be closed during the key tourist season. So this is a big deal.
Third, affordability. It was announced last week that the median home price in San Diego had had hit a record high of $594,000. That impacts what rents are going to be. That impacts housing and overall general affordability in the city. That's going to be a major issue that mayoral candidates and council candidates will be talking about a lot come the election in the fall.
