Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, center, announced her new economic 'prosperity roadmap' on Tues., Dec. 2, 2025 at Tualatin semiconductor manufacturing company Lam Research. Kotek was flanked by business leaders who are hoping she will reform permitting processes and advance policies that make it more lucrative to do business in the state. (Photo by Alex Baumhardt/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek is counting on permitting reform, global trade, corporate tax incentives and putting private business leaders in charge as she attempts to improve the state’s business climate.
Kotek, who is expected to launch her reelection campaign before the end of the year, unveiled what she called a “prosperity roadmap” on Tuesday afternoon at a news conference at Lam Research in Tualatin. The semiconductor manufacturing company makes the machines that other companies use to produce computer chips for artificial intelligence, cloud computing and data storage.
Company executives, as well as leaders from other Portland and Oregon-based companies and agencies including wood manufacturer Timberlab, outdoor clothier Columbia Sportswear, computer chip designer Ampere and the Port of Portland, joined Kotek at the event.
“We’re trying to do our thing here, and the federal administration — between tariffs and uncertainty around regulations — has thrown a curve ball,” Kotek said. “We’ve seen study after study that says we have headwinds in front of us. We also have a lot of assets here. So the purpose of this roadmap is to focus folks, to get more experts around a table, and say this is our starting point. What else can we do?”
She’s also hoping to combat the state’s reputation as inhospitable to business development and growth. That’s a common attack line for Republican critics, including a group working to ensure voters see a suite of transportation-related tax and fee hikes Kotek backed on the ballot next November.
State Sen. Christine Drazan, a Republican who lost to Kotek in 2022 and recently announced plans to run again, slammed Kotek in a statement provided by a Senate GOP spokesperson.
“If the governor is serious about fixing Oregon’s economy, the first thing she needs to do is stop making things worse,” Drazan said. “Her weak leadership is sinking our state. Oregonians deserve a governor who will hold the line on taxes, stop the mandates and actually work with employers instead of driving them out of our state.”
Two metrics of success in Kotek’s new plan include moving up to the top 10 in CNBC rankings, including “Best States for Businesses” and “Top States for Business Workforce.”
Oregon once ranked among the top half of U.S. states in the best for business ratings, but has slid in recent years and into 21st place in 2023, 28th place in 2024 and 39th place in July.
The rankings reflect the desirability and ease of starting and running a business in each state and the quality and quantity of each state’s labor pool.
“I know we can do this. We can beat these headlines, and we can create the jobs we need for people around the state,” Kotek said.
Among the targets the “prosperity roadmap” is meant to reach are retaining and growing the number of businesses in Oregon, creating more jobs and raising the state’s gross domestic product by 2.2%, which would add $4 billion to the state’s general fund coffers by the 2029 budget cycle, according to Kotek’s office.
Strategies include the possibility of more targeted tax relief in exchange for job creation, including potential updates to the state enterprise zone and strategic investment programs that offer property tax breaks for companies that make large investments that could lead to hiring.
She’s ordered agencies to create permit inventories so redundancies and needed updates can be addressed, and is creating a new FastTrack program to get large projects permitted faster when they require multiple permits from multiple agencies. It will be modeled after similar programs created in the last couple years by governors’ executive orders in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Michigan.
The map is the first step in broader economic reforms, Kotek said, and will inform executive, administrative and legislative policies in the 2026 short session that begins at the end of February.
Kotek said she’s preparing to ask the Legislature for $40 million to $50 million during the session to accelerate land permitting and boost industrial development on underused land. That request comes as lawmakers prepare to cut at least $63 million from the state’s current two-year budget to respond to a budget deficit.
She’s also creating a new Global Trade Desk at Business Oregon, the state’s economic development agency, to grow international trade partnerships and to promote foreign investment in Oregon. And she’s created a new role in the governor’s office for a chief prosperity officer, meant to coordinate state agencies on economic development strategies, as well as a Prosperity Council.
The council will be led by Renee James, chair and CEO of Ampere and a member of the Oregon Business Council, and Curtis Robinhold, executive director of the Port of Portland.
James was formerly president of Intel and founded Ampere in 2017.
Kotek said she’d name more council members and the prosperity officer by the end of the year.
Kotek, legislative leaders and business leaders will lay out more plans for the upcoming year at an annual business summit next week.
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