House Speaker Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, is confident Florida will be a pocket of prosperity in the coming decades in a global world of winners and losers that includes other states.

However, he said the state needs to be creative in building its transportation system to better position itself for an increase in global trade.

And, Weatherford suggested, one of those innovative means should be to consider establishing direct airline flights from Florida to China and India, which he acknowledged will be expensive.

The message to business leaders on Monday, gathered at a remote rural resort near the Georgia state line, was that Floridas reliance upon gas tax revenues to pay for transportation projects is in decline while the call to build the air, road, rail, and sea cargo infrastructure grows.

So for a state where lawmakers are more than reluctant to raises taxes, business and political leaders say creative ideas are needed to generate more revenue for the state to pay for desired upgrades to the states ports, rail lines, airports and roads.