COLUMBIA, S.C. – Ahead of the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce’s annual legislative session kickoff event, Business Speaks, the SC Chamber released its annual Competitiveness Agenda detailing the business community’s top policy priorities for the 2025 legislative session.
The Competitiveness Agenda, developed annually, consists of policy solutions to challenges impacting job creators and businesses across industries and throughout the state. The SC Chamber board approved the 2025 Competitiveness Agenda after conducting extensive grassroots outreach to hear directly from business leaders across S.C. about their most pressing issues. The 2025 Competitiveness agenda was developed after the SC Chamber team engaged with nearly 800 local business leaders from over 30 local chambers during the organization’s 22-stop Grassroots Tour.
The seven areas indicated by business leaders that they would like the General Assembly to focus on during the 2025 legislative session are:
- Reducing Business Tax Burdens & Modernizing the Tax Code
- Bringing Fairness to an Unfair Tort System
- Addressing South Carolina’s Future Energy Needs
- Addressing Barriers to Workforce Participation
- Ensuring Continued Economic Growth & Prosperity
- Establishing a Flourishing & Resilient Talent Pipeline
- Letting Businesses Do Business
“South Carolina continues to be on the receiving end of unprecedented economic and population growth, thanks in no small part to the efforts of our state’s leaders who have worked closely with the business community in recent years to enact pro-growth policies including significant tax relief, transformative investments in all facets of the state’s critical infrastructure, and initiatives to transform the state’s workforce of the future”, said SC Chamber President and CEO Mike Brenan. “However, we cannot rest on our laurels if we want South Carolina’s economy to be the envy of every other state in the country. As we enter the 2025 session of the South Carolina General Assembly, the SC Chamber has again defined and will advocate for a pro-business agenda that, if enacted, will make South Carolina’s economy even stronger and unleash our state’s full economic potential.”
“A strong economy means plentiful job opportunities, high wages, strong communities, and even stronger families. The policies we’re going to advocate for in 2025 are all aimed towards protecting our state’s booming economy and creating more growth, so even more South Carolinians will benefit from it,” said SC Chamber Board Chairman Thomas Rhodes.
