MATT JOHNSON is chairman of Mando Group

TOWN Hall treasurers the length and breadth of the country are crunching numbers in their annual task of helping councils set their budgets.

This year, it’s an even more difficult task coming as our Coalition Government’s deficit reduction programme comes into play.

New pressures are being applied to every part of the budget process.

Not a day passes without some media reference to the need to “rebalance” our economy, to reduce reliance on public sector spending in favour of private sector-led investment.

In this region, or city region as it is increasingly being described, the public sector has traditionally been a cornerstone of the local economy.

Documents published locally this week show how this could all be about to change. This week sees the latest Liverpool city region economic review from The Mersey Partnership, which is always an eagerly- awaited health check of how the local economy is performing.

The latest, eighth edition is no different in terms of setting out the key official data that allows detailed examination and analysis of what is happening in the local economy.

Where this year’s review is different from previous editions, though, is in setting out where future economic growth might come from. This is more important than ever because we, like every other UK region, have to “rebalance” our economy.

It is key for the region that we recognise that, if we are to succeed against other UK and European regions, we have to identify our best assets and opportunities and make the most of them.

It’s a strategy that was much talked about at the event to publish the economic review.

The public and private sector on Merseyside have identified four key sectors for growth with the potential, it is hoped, to create an extra 128,000 new jobs in the next decade.

These sectors are the knowledge economy, based around the city’s universities and medical establishments; servicing wind farms in the Irish Sea; tourism; and the Superport idea, which is about creating a maritime infrastructure stretching from the Mersey Estuary to Salford Docks.

“Ambitious” doesn’t begin to describe that challenge, but the region has some outstanding assets and competitive advantages that can fuel growth for years to come.