Member Article

Youth and overseas markets key to Manchester growth

Overseas growth markets and developing young talent are the building blocks needed for Manchester’s growth, two regional thinkers have suggested.

Speaking independently of each other this week, Scott Fletcher, chairman of ANS Group and Baron Frankal, director of economic strategy at New Econom, set out their ideas for the city region.

As Mr Fletcher addressed delegates at the CityCo ‘Knowledge and Innovation’, he said attention should be turned towards steering young people into the tech sector, so that Manchester could “dominate” the tech space in the future.

Fletcher’s own ANS Group have achieved a £50m turnover by taking private companies and government departments into Cloud computing. He said: “The Tech sector is obviously fluid and businesses need to re-invent themselves at least every three years. There is no resting on our laurels if we want our organisationsand Manchester to be number one.

“If we want to realise our rightful status as the UK Tech Capital we all need to work together. Business, education and the public sector must be coordinated and have a clear voice and agenda. It’s critical that we work together collaboratively if we want to influence government policy.”

Mr Frankal on the other hand, suggested growth markets should be a key focus for the strategy of Greater Manchester.He said: “To create more jobs in Greater Manchester and a return to economic growth, our aspirations must stretch far beyond the local. Our future prosperity is increasingly reliant on direct foreign investment and overseas trade.

“We’re already making waves in these areas, forging strong links with the growth markets, and above all in China, but we need to make bigger ones. Last month, Manchester staged a very successful business development tour of China, and in the coming months we hope to launch an innovative and ambitious Manchester-China Forum, which already several of the UK’s big names have put themselves forward for, and Lord Nat Wei has agreed to be a Director of.

“To maximise our engagement with these foreign markets, we need to leverage Manchester’s strengths, and address its weaknesses. That we have a good story to tell is shown every week, recently with the arrival of US-tech firm Eon Reality, amongst the world leaders of the 3D immersive technology that is lining up to revolutionise learning in schools and much else besides.

“More prosaically it brings instant jobs and the development of a specialist ‘coding school’ to nurture our local talent base and make Greater Manchester an obvious place to exploit this technology. This is exactly the kind of initiative Greater Manchester needs more of to stay ahead of the game and make next years jobs figures better.”

Mr Fletcher also commented on a chance meeting he had with the business development director of Eon Reality, who told him the Californian company had chosen the city because of the “drive, skills and passion of the people of Manchester.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .