Member Article

Trade Minister meets Manchester and Cheshire businesses in first visit to region

Minister for Trade and Investment Lord Livingston is visiting Greater Manchester and Cheshire to meet businesses who export products and services around the world and call others to follow their example.

This is his first visit to the region since his appointment in December.

He is meeting staff and management at Tenmat Ltd in Trafford Park, which has bases in the USA, France and Italy and earns 80 per cent of its revenue from abroad; 3M in Chadderton, whose manufacturing operations for Europe are based at the site; and Proseal Ltd in Adlington, Cheshire, which has operations in Australia, the USA and Canada and generated £5 million in exports last year. Lord Livingston will officially open the company’s new factory.

The Minister recently pledged to substantially increase the help UKTI provides to medium-sized businesses (MSBs) such as Tenmat Ltd, promising to contact them all by summer 2014 and provide a relationship manager for all those who require export assistance. The North West has 870 MSBs, employing one in five of the region’s workers.

He also promised to step up support for small companies wishing to export and to increase awareness of the services that Government can offer, through targeted marketing and improved web access.

Lord Livingston said: “Improving export performance is vital to building a sustainable recovery, and a fundamental part of the government’s economic plan.

“I am very happy to be in the North West, hearing from companies who are at the forefront of the export drive.

“The North West has the third largest number of MSBs in the country, and we are actively supporting this hugely important sector, as well as the many new exporters in the region. . UKTI can help you join them in the export drive so contact the UKTI team at www.ukti.gov.uk”

The Minister is to meet UKTI’s regional team and representatives from MIDAS, the Chamber of Commerce and Greater Manchester Local Enterprise Partnership.

A new national campaign, ‘Exporting is GREAT’, aims to generate 3,000 appointments for small firms with UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) advisers by April 2014 and drive £1.2 billion in export revenue from the leads it generates.

UKTI has supported 35,000 companies between January to December 2013 and is on track to achieve our target of 40,000 in 2013-14. In the first three quarters of 2013/14 (April –Dec) UKTI delivered 3, 755 services to 1,606 Greater Manchester businesses. This included 663 significant assists.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Simon Malia .