I closed International Trade Week 2011 in the North East recently with a speech about the UK’s successes - and James Averdieck of GU Puddings was our guest speaker . It was great to meet James - an ex-Durham …
Japan's seen record snowfalls this year, right along its Japan Sea coast and northern prefectures, enough to bury entire houses. And yet the traffic keeps flowing. How come? Well, a mixture of preparation, and ingenuity. One Japanese company making rice …
I’m just back from a great visit to Cumbria where I saw some fantastic advanced manufacturing companies. Cumbria is of course renowned for its tourism and, in my opinion, Wastwater in the Lake District was quite rightly voted Britain’s Favourite …
I’ve recently returned from the Shanghai Expo where I helped to co-host two creative workshops. They were part of UKTI’s ‘Sowing the Seeds of Creative Partnership’ programme of business events for the creative industries. Shanghai is truly is an Expo …
The first time I stayed in the Residence in Tokyo, the Ambassador had a rather rickety Rolls Royce, the art collection was fusty and old-fashioned and the ikebana (flower arrangements) was wondrous. Well now his wheels is a Jaguar (Indian-owned, …
The Map Room in the Foreign Office tells you a lot about the 1920’s British view of the world. Lots of empire, some Europe, Asia pretty sparse. Well, in the offices of the Korean equivalent of UKTI, Kotra, there is …
On a plane back to London. I had to leave on Friday evening as I was flying to South Korea on Saturday. Pity. There are always more people to meet at Davos. But I have over 40 of the best …
Thirty hours in Delhi. This lovely garden city of politics and administration, was chilly. Everyone wearing scarves and woolly hats and even blankets. But the warmth and soul of India was everywhere. I think that the best moment was sitting …
In recent days, I’ve spent time at Liverpool Science Park, Manchester Science Park and Daresbury Science & Innovation Campus and I’ve been thinking about how important R&D is to the future prosperity of the UK. I work a lot with …
Right now, world leaders are gathered here in Copenhagen for the UN’s COP15 conference to mitigate the causes of climate change. Thousands of governmental and non-governmental participants are here to play their part in the negotiations. I am deeply impressed …
