Trade Minister praises dynamism of North East

May 3 2008 by Karen Dent, The Journal

THE region’s dynamism and innovation was applauded by Lord Digby Jones when he visited three North East companies in his role as Minister for Trade and Investment.

The former CBI director-general came to Newcastle and Gateshead yesterday at the invitation of UK Trade & Investment’s North East region, where he met representatives of companies which have put overseas trade at the top of their business agenda.

His first port of call was Gateshead-based Davy Roll, which won a Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the International Trade category last year and has just been named runner up in The Journal’s North East Business Awards export category. The business exports more than three-quarters of the steel cast rolls it manufactures. Lord Jones also met members of Newcastle-based Northern Defence Industries, which represents more than 200 regional SMEs in the aerospace and defence industries.

And he visited Newcastle University spin-out Orla Protein Technologies, a nano-biotechnology business which has signed a deal to incorporate its technology into medical diagnostic devices in Japan.

Lord Jones said: “All these companies know that to succeed they must make use of all the opportunities globalisation offers. They also need a skilled workforce. We cannot compete with economies like China and India on price alone but what these companies prove is that we can compete with them on quality.”