Using trade and investment as a vehicle to drive prosperity for all

At the CBI’s International Trade conference, speakers from the business world and government from Wales, Scotland, and two English regions discuss how trade and investment might level up prosperity across the UK. 

Speakers

• Andrew Evans, Senior Director, Compliance and Commercial Services, SPTS Technologies Ltd 
• Kiran Haslam, Chief Marketing Officer, Princess Yachts
• Henrietta Jowitt, Deputy Director-General, CBI ​ 
• Ivan McKee MSP, Minister for Trade, Investment, and Innovation, Scottish Government ​ 
• Lucy Winskell OBE, Chair of Board, North East Local Enterprise Partnership   
• Daisy McAndrew, Broadcaster 

Highlights from the session: 

• Henrietta Jowitt observed that trade and investment policy had not delivered evenly for communities across the UK, with 50% of all international investment over the last 20 years landing in London. Government at regional, devolved, and national levels need to work together with business to ensure that everyone gets a fairer slice of the pie 
• Lucy Winskell stated the right peer support and eco-system is critical to export and this is especially important when getting business to think about exporting to non-traditional markets and for regions to diversify their sectors. Closeness between universities and business was also crucial
• When starting to export, the key thing was to ask for help. Andrew Evans and Lucy Winskell have positive experiences of DIT helping to find a distributor in Abu Dhabi and supporting a life sciences mission to Boston with universities and Newcastle City Council.  Henrietta Jowitt talked about how the CBI could put members in touch with mentors and multipliers in the service sector
• Attracting investment and boosting exports was about taking the time to build trust and understand cultural differences. This had been the experience of the North-East with Nissan, it was also true when exports to regions as different as the US 
• International investment could help export by exposure to international business culture, SPTS had been exposed to US, Israeli and Japanese business culture through foreign investment and this helped them become a more successful exporter
• For the Scottish government, the real sweet spot in export promotion were larger SMEs: companies who are big enough to have the bandwidth to be able to go and export but can be introduced to new markets
• Investment was always going to be a competitive game but there’s scope to collaborate as well, with London proving a good fishing ground for the Scottish government as a way of reaching international investors and persuading them to diversify
• Access to skills was a critical talking point, SPTS technologies had been helped by the Welsh government’s network 75 system, which allowed students to blend three days a week in work with university study. Kiran Haslam said Princess Yachts had three generations of workers on some assembly line and were hanging to all the skilled labour they could as bringing skills back would take years
• British business needed to get better at telling its story. In Princess Yacht’s experience, brand Britain is perceived differently to how we outwardly sometimes project it. In certain parts of the world, British engineering is seen as far superior to German. Andrew Evans agreed: UK manufacturing was a critical part of mobile phones, but people often didn’t realise it.