Developing our region’s international competitiveness

The UK is the number-one location for foreign direct investment (FDI), so Yorkshire Forward’s priority is to position Yorkshire & Humber as a dynamic location for global businesses. We’re creating a springboard for growth, attracting increasing levels of international business.

Our work in this area focuses on attracting and retaining investment by overseas-owned companies, and promoting more international trade/joint ventures by regional businesses in key overseas markets. We want to  deliver a year-on-year improvement in both the value and quality of activity. In addition, we work closely with the region’s biggest employers (40% of which are now foreign-owned) to grow their businesses within the region.

This page tells you about our International Business policy. To find out about the support we deliver in this area, please refer to our pages on international business development.

Why do we encourage FDI?

• Foreign direct investment (by overseas companies) helps UK firms to adopt new technologies at a faster rate, with foreign firms providing knowledge spill-overs because they conduct a considerable amount of R&D in the UK.
• A recent study found that the FDI firms among Yorkshire’s top 150 businesses produced higher-than-average growth, out-performing indigenous firms in their ability to move faster than the market and to achieve sustainable economic growth.
• FDI is a highly effective economic intervention and delivers excellent value for money. For every £1 Yorkshire  Forward invested in our FDI operation in 2007-8, we generated over £600 in private capital investment.

Why do we encourage overseas trade?

• Developing overseas trade enables our businesses—and therefore our region—to become more competitive, more stable, and more able to withstand local economic shocks.
• Our interventions deliver excellent value for money: for every £1 we invested in trade in 2008-09, we generated over £17 in increased export revenue.

How do we achieve our objectives?

Our international programme is delivered through three key strands of activity:

1: Foreign direct investment

Our aim is to deliver a 10% year-on-year increase in the number of Yorkshire Forward-involved FDIs, securing 132 new investments by April 2010. We also want to increase the number of knowledge-based businesses investing in our region by 75% by 2009 (the UKTI target).  We also intend to encourage £100m a year in private-sector investment. We plan to achieve these targets by:

• Actively promoting our region’s priority-sector offerings in Europe, America and key emerging markets in the Far East
• Maintaining a network of sector specialists to promote our regional offering
• Focusing on better integration of trade, inward investment and investor-development programmes
• Strategically leading the region’s approach with UKTI, nationally and internationally
• Working closely with local authorities, chambers of commerce, UKTI, universities and sector representatives to co-ordinate inward investment and to pursue opportunities
• Developing strategic alliances nationally and internationally and establishing a network of key intermediaries, including ‘Yorkshire ambassadors’.

2: Trade

Our objective is to ensure that regional businesses, especially in our region’s  priority sectors, are able to exploit overseas markets. Although the region’s exports increased by 50% from £8bn to £12bn between 2000 and 2006 (a 43% increase compared to England’s overall increase of 33%), we believe the region could perform better in international markets. We do this by:

• Taking a strategic lead with UKTI to improve the global competitiveness of our region’s businesses and ensure that UKTI activity incorporates our priorities
• Enhancing the delivery of programmes through the new Business Link service
• Developing a more targeted approach to our interventions, through a restructured Targeted Export Support Scheme (TESS) grant
• Increasing awareness of the market opportunities involving exporting, especially in managing supply chains
• Working with regional partners to co-ordinate trade activity and avoid fragmentation.

3: Investor development

Our goal is to actively engage with our region’s largest companies to help them to compete in the global market, assisting in areas which impact on productivity and help them to expand their operations within the region.  Building productive relationships with these companies is vital as they account for half of the region’s GDP, and over 40% are foreign owned, therefore their investment and restructuring decisions can have a significant impact on our economy.

We do this by:

• Taking the strategic lead in the ongoing implementation of a structured Key Account Management (KAM) programme to encourage reinvestment by our largest companies
• Targeting our resources in areas where we know we’re in stiff competition for investment
• Analysing policy issues affecting business development, influencing national policy and maximising investment opportunities for the region.

Who delivers our work in this area?

Our FDI work is managed by Yorkshire Forward’s core international team, co-ordinating with our International teams in Japan, China, India  Europe, and the USA/Canada. Regional trade delivery is through international trade advisers, via a joint UKTI/Yorkshire Forward contract with Business Link Yorkshire. Investor development is delivered through the YF KAM team, leading on the top 200 companies and co-ordinating with local authority partners on 400 remaining accounts.