Southfield (WWJ)  -- What's the pulse among Michigan's business leaders--ahead of the Mackinac Policy Conference later this month?  

A new Detroit Regional Chamber finds that just over two-thirds of Michigan CEO's think the state's business climate will be stronger five years from now--a decline from the 2007 survey.  

The biggest concern?  The high cost of health insurance.  Two in five, meantime, say the Michigan Business Tax is the main worry.

The phone poll and research, conducted by John Bailey & Associates, asked 200 senior-level executives from Detroit-area businesses to weigh in on the most pressing issues facing the region and state. 

Among potential candidates for governor in 2010, former Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer received the most support in the survey.

"The goal was to gauge the opinions of business so we could narrow the list of topics on the Mackinac agenda to those that are the most important for building a stronger Michigan," said Leslie A. Murphy, president and CEO of Murphy Consulting and chair for the 2008 Detroit Regional Chamber Mackinac Policy Conference, in a statement.  "We achieved our objective by incorporating the issues the business community wants to address into our policy sessions on the island."

Other highlights from this year's business survey include:

. Lack of regional public transportation remains an issue for business leaders;
. Poor student preparation for the workforce as well as attraction and retention of young talent are the biggest education and workforce issues for business leaders;
. 29% identified partisan politics as limiting Michigan's ability to transform its economy;
. 58% rate Michigan's term limit law a failure;

The phone-survey results were supplemented with an online survey and two focus groups with business leaders and entrepreneurs in order to fine tune the list of topics to be addressed during the Mackinac Policy Conference.  The outcome includes issues such as term limits, health care, talent retention and alternative energy which are slated to be session topics when the state's top political, business and community leaders gather on Mackinac Island on May 28-30.

Click here for more on the survey and conference.

Meantime, a new report released Tuesday by the Economic Development Coalition of Southeast Michigan shows four billion dollars in investments were made in southeast Michigan last year.  

The coalition, made up of several business groups throughout southeast Michigan, says the investments were tied to more than one-hundred new projects that brought 16-thousand jobs to the area.  An additional 9,552 jobs were retained as a result of these investments. 

Click here for more information.