Newcastle City Council recently collaborated with Newcastle and Northumbria Universities and UKTI to bring a senior delegation of visitors from China (Henan) to the city. It was fascinating for me as I’d spent time in Zhengzhou and An Yang in a previous life and it took me back to some happy memories of working with a fast developing China in the 90’s. I hope to go back to Zhengzhou one day .
More importantly the collaboration between city council, universities and UKTI does look formidable and capable to our visitors – through that alliance we are quickly able to bring spin-outs, educational excellence and strong policy knowledge together to demonstrate the value of partnership.
I want to thank the Henan Provincial Government for their visit and the city council and universities for their excellent support. As the UK goes forward in addressing its export agenda and building its trading position internationally, we are going to have to work collaboratively and in strong partnership. The North East recently announced record export figures of £13BN up to end of Q1 2011 and China took some £500m of NE goods, with strong growth recorded .
I’m sure that through future collaboration this can only get stronger