Importance of financial structures

Jun 30 2009 by Karen Wilson, The Journal

IN MY capacity as chairman of the North East Regional Investment Fund, I have had first-hand experience over many years of the issues and challenges of investing in North East England.

And with this experience in mind, I am now closely involved in the deployment of the new JEREMIE funds which will soon become available in our region.

It is as a consequence of this that I am regularly asked to represent the UK in general at the European Commission with regard to their policy initiatives in this area, and to speak at conferences worldwide on the issue of investing in Small and Medium Enterprise (SMEs).

It is pleasing to be able to report that the region’s approach over the years to this issue is highly regarded both at national and European level.

The North East is once again leading the way in respect of the new JEREMIE funds, and is displaying great innovation and creativity in the way it intends to deploy these funds.

However, there are issues which transcend the region, particularly for somewhere which is a relatively small economic area.

Globalisation is reaching into all aspects of our lives, including the ways in which we financially support our new and emerging small businesses, many of which have to be highly innovative to be able to compete on the world market.

I have recently become chairman of the Northern Way, a body set up some years ago to foster co-operation between the three Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) in the North, with a view to closing the North-South divide.

Establishing the Northern Way in some way recognised the limitations of the RDAs, due to their scale and limited geographic focus, in being able to have significant impact on the big issues that not only threaten the regions, but the country as a whole.

One of the initiatives currently being pursued is a North of England fund which would have the scale to support businesses well beyond that which can be done by the JEREMIE funds, establishing them at the global level.

There is still a great deal of business potential to realise across our region, and putting the right financial support structures in place will have a significant positive impact on the North East economy, over both the short and the long term.

Hugh Morgan Williams is chairman of the North East Regional Investment Fund