Britain needs to “raise its game” to make sure it is not left behind by emerging markets around the world, according to Jeremy Browne MP, minister of state at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Britain needs to “raise its game” to make sure it is not left behind by emerging markets around the world, according to Jeremy Browne MP, minister of state at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Mr Browne was speaking at the Global Manufacturing Festival’s Convention and Trade show at Sheffield City Hall.
He said: “There’s a revolution taking place in the world and we choose to be wilfully neglectful of how the revolution will affect us. The world’s economy is set to expand rapidly and we need new alliances and better understandings with more countries.”
“Our economy will grow, but we’ll be getting richer at a slower rate than other areas of the world. The UK and Europe’s share of the global economy will be smaller. We are not seizing the opportunities which exist, we need to look globally and encourage more countries to be open to British investment.”
He added: “The UK needs to raise its game to make ourselves more competitive on a global market. We can be globally competitive as we have strengths which are recognised around the world in many important sectors.”
The Convention and Trade show saw presentations from Lee Hopley from EEF, Chris Squires at EDF, Andrew Peters from Siemens Drive Technologies, Sir Chris O’Donnell former CEO of Smith & Nephew, Ric Parker of Rolls-Royce, Dr. Alan McLelland at NAMTEC and Professor Keith Ridgway CBE, University of Sheffield’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre with Boeing.
The Global Manufacturing Festival, which was organised by Sheffield Chamber of Commerce and Marketing Sheffield, ran over two days and attracted more than 2,000 people to a range of activities.
The festival, sponsored by Nabarro LLP, NatWest, University of Sheffield and Siemens Plc, was the second to take place in Sheffield since its creation a year ago.
Richard Wright, executive director of Sheffield Chamber of Commerce, said: “We were delighted with the festival as it achieved most of the objectives we had set ourselves against what is a five-year plan to stage the event in Sheffield. Attendances were as good as last year and we increased the number of people from outside the region, attracting delegates from four countries around the world.”
