Planning regulations, a lack of support for emerging start-up businesses and challenges finding skilled staff are some of the main issues frustrating Western Bay of Plenty business leaders.

These were some of the main issues business leaders told Treasury CEO Gabriel Makhlouf are challenging them during his first visit to Tauranga this week.

Treasury CEO Gabriel Makhlouf measured Tauranga's business pulse during a visit to the city this week.

But rather than offering any magical fairy dust, the head of the Government's economic advisory agency encouraged the business community to find its own solutions where it can.

Gabriel's visit was to get an insight into the region's strengths and challenges to 'inform” data Treasury drew on to advise government policy. He says the visit was the start of regular trips to talk to business in the regions.

'They felt the community here was not doing as good a job as they could to support the small businesses in their first years.”

He says they believe many small businesses are not achieving their potential because they do not appreciate the value in getting professional advice early.

'The question was whether the business community could be doing more to support them get to a stable footing faster.”

On the issue of attracting skilled staff he suggests the business community get proactive and consider what they can do themselves, in the way Rotorua iwi has dealt with skills shortages by setting up training programmes.

'The community needs to really think about what it does itself if it has a skills challenge”

Gabriel says another theme, which he has heard elsewhere, is frustration over how the Resource Management Act and planning regulations is a barrier to growth and job creation.

He says the high Kiwi dollar was only mentioned as a problem by two of about 20 business leaders he met with and he suggested intervention in the exchange rate by the government was unlikely.

'Treasury has thought about this with the Reserve Bank quite a lot, but the forces that are driving the dollar at the moment are beyond our control .. So intervening in the market will almost inevitably cost the Government a lot of money.”

Gabriel says the lack of comments on the high exchange rate did not mean they were happy about it, but may just reflect a belief that little can be done.