WAGGA City Council's 2014 economic snapshot paints a promising picture of the city and its future, with investment high and the services sector continuing to grow significantly.
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The snapshot shows that the city's top value-adding sector is public administration and safety, which contributes $475 million to Wagga's gross value.
Council's director of commercial and economic development Peter Adams said sectors such as education and health were also vital to the city's future.
"The reason it's important we have a very close relationship with the (education and) health sectors is that if you want to attract an aircraft engineer or pilot to town, they want their kids to get a good education and no one wants to have bad health services," he said.
"It doesn't matter whether you sell coffee or cars or you're a builder, all those people have the same issues about things needing to get here cheaply on the supply chain, needing to hook up their business to the digital economy and needing to attract and hold staff with education or health."
Dr Adams likens Wagga's economy to a "superannuation fund", insulated from volatile boom and bust cycles due to diversifying its portfolio.
"We're growing all of our industries on a good steady base," he said.
"There's no doubt we're fortunate to have that good spread."
One of the big surprise packets of the snapshot was Wagga's aviation industry, with its direct activities now equating to almost 70 per cent of the city's agriculture, forestry and fishing sectors.
A key driver of aviation growth is the expansion currently being undertaken at the Australian Airline Pilot Academy, which is due to unveil a new state-of-the-art flight simulator next month.
But deputy mayor Andrew Negline admits that while the outlook is good, more needs to be done to build Wagga's economy.
"The numbers are good but obviously we've got work to do," he said.
"It's not perfect out there and it's hard."
Also vital was ensuring Wagga made it known that the city was open for business, according to Cr Negline.
"We've got to roll out the red carpet, not the red tape," he said.
Gross regional product $3,698,000,000
Annual airline passengers 207,000+
Hospital beds 350+
Population 2014 = 63,847 2020 = 68,714 2030 = 77,170
Median rental price Three-bedroom, all dwellings: $283 per week. Sydney: $480 per week
