Member Article

Sheffield firms praise trade mission to Singapore

Sheffield businesses have hailed a recent trade mission to Singapore as a “huge success”, after finding opportunities in aerospace as well as the oil and gas sectors.

Eight companies from the Sheffield City Region were led by William Beckett, managing director of William Beckett Plastics and chair of South Yorkshire International Trade Forum (SYITF) for SCR Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP).

Mr Beckett commented: “I investigated the oil & gas and aerospace industries in Singapore and was left in no doubt of the significant potential for companies in the SCR to increase their exports to Singapore and to the South East Asian region as a whole.

“Singapore is the world’s 3rd most important centre for these sectors hosting two of the most important exhibitions for this market in Asia, the Singapore Air Show and OSEA Oil and Gas Exhibition.

“These events present an excellent platform for companies in the SCR to grow their exports.Sheffield and England are highly regarded and trusted brands, leading steel companies from SCR are already well-established out there.

“Now is the time to maximise SCR’s presence and take advantage of our reputation.It is the intention of the LEP sector group, the Manufacturing Forum, to conduct detailed market research of the manufacturing companies in Singapore in order to entice SCR companies to pursue business out there.

“Further trade missions to Singapore will almost certainly result from this initiative to introduce companies to this very exciting market.”

The visit included a visit to the High Commision, and was organised by UK Trade and Investment alongside SYITF.

Peter Kersh of Doncaster-based New Era Acquaculture, who went on the visit, commented: “The evening reception at the Deputy High Commissioner’s residence was a great event and our customers from Resort World Sentosa really enjoyed it.

“We had excellent meetings with the technical and buying teams and started the long process of discussing the next contract.

“The timing of the mission was perfect for us, we were able to cement relationships, assess performance of our (fish food) diets so far and make recommendations for the future.”

Other Sheffield City Region businesses on the delegation included Sheffield based Macalloy, Durham Duplex and Lightwork Design and Bradwell based Arkitectonix.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Miranda Dobson .