IN what is a healthy shot into the central Queensland economy, Tasmanian timber milling company, Timber Marshalling Services, has set up business at Bondoola near Yeppoon.
According to the managing director Brendan O'Connor central Queensland seemed like a logical place to establish the project.
"We started up here because we saw a need for central Queensland to have a finished sawn product and we chose the Bondoola site as there was an existing mill there a few years ago," he said.
The project is expected to create between 60 and 120 jobs with a predicted turnover of $65m.
It comes at a time when job losses in the mining industry have affected the local economy, and has benefitted the newly opened business.
"We have been lucky. The mining downturn has played in our favour with labour availability in terms of reasonably priced employment," Mr O'Connor said.
He said the resource at the nearby Byfield Forest suited their sawing line down to a tee, while at the same time being plantation-based.
"We will cut about 30 per cent of central and north Queensland's requirements, so it will have an impact, but we're not going to decimate any of the other mills in Queensland," Mr O'Connor said.
"It took us about six to eight weeks to relocate infrastructure from Tasmania. I think there was about 55 truck loads, but three quarters of the mill is brand new.
"The locals are far more accepting of the timber industry than what the Tasmanian locals are, and we have had a lot more support which has been really heartening."