Mandelson says Britain must change

Jan 19 2009 by Peter McCusker, The Journal

BUSINESS Secretary Lord Mandelson said the country was likely to see the economy diversify away from a dependence on financial services.

He said problems in the financial sector were going to take more time and ingenuity to resolve.

And he said British business needed to look at where it could find a competitive advantage in the future.

Speaking at the Fabian Society’s new year conference, Lord Mandelson said in the future there would be “less financial engineering and more real engineering in our economy”.

“We will see our economy diversify away from an over dependency on financial services,” he said.

“We’ve got to identify what specialist businesses we are going to invest in, where are we going to make our contribution to the global economy.”