I'm not sure that I'd be able to catch Richard Morris as he speeds around the region but I have had quite a breathless time myself as an International Trade Advisor in the South-West and now as a Trade Development Manager in Australia.
For the past eighteen months I've been giving advice to a wide variety of enthusiastic potential exporters based in Gloucestershire who want to know how to go about selling their products to the world. I've been demonstrating how UKTI and the services our network offers can help get their export effort off to a flying start. This has meant dealing with an astonishing variety of innovative UK companies and products from high-tech polar expedition sledges to cutting-edge computer software that produces huge energy savings in commercial and industrial buildings. If I didn't know how advanced communications technology is in the South West of England I'd say that news of the global economic downturn hasn't reached the region!
I'm now in Australia on the other side of the network, and have the interesting and unusual experience of reconnecting with many of the client companies I worked with in the UK and who I helped take the first steps towards exporting successfully. Some of these now have agents and distributors (and bursting order books) in Australia. They have used the range of UKTI services available and due to this, and of course due to the commercial teams in Australia who have connected them with local contacts, they have truly been able to hit the ground running.
I'm looking forward to the upcoming South West Trade delegation to Australia which will arrive in Sydney on 26th October. 28 companies, the largest UK trade delegation to Australia in over 10 years I'm told. It will be good to catch up with old friends and colleagues.
Richard Harper, Trade Development Manager