UKTI have a new Minister for Trade & Investment, Lord Green, formerly of HSBC and in March he paid his first visit in his new role to the West Midlands.
It was a great chance for West Midlands companies, large and small, to meet with the Minister to let him have their views on the state [...]

15 March marks the all important ‘500 days to go’ on the journey to the 2012 Olympic Games and like any sports fan I’m looking forward to the greatest celebration of sport on the planet. 
But it isn’t just about sport.  We’ll never have a better chance to showcase the UK and its capabilities. London 2012 [...]

The recent news about rising exports and growing confidence in manufacturing has been a boost for the region and last week I took the opportunity to go out and see for myself what was happening in the manufacturing heartland of the Black Country.
Sometimes in my job, as UKTI’s International Trade Director for the West Midlands,  [...]

Great news about the latest trade figures which show that West Midlands exports are up by 25.5 per cent - the highest percentage rise in the English regions.
Also encouraging are the signs from recent surveys from the region’s Chambers and others, about confidence in future export orders and the overall buoyancy of international trade.
But what [...]

Fed up with hearing ‘we don’t make anything in the UK anymore’? 
..in fact we remain the 6th or 7th largest manufacturing economy in the world (depending on how you count it) and here in the West Midlands, our exports remain dominated by advanced engineering, automotive and minerals/metals manufacture.
What’s perhaps less well known is that our [...]