Midlands World Trade Forum

This morning we welcomed the Chairman of the Midlands World Trade Forum Mr Peter Matthews CMG into the Mayor's Parlour for an early morning breakfast meeting that I had sponsored as mayor.

The Midlands World Trade Forum is an important organisation which is dedicated to help exporters in their quest to increase Midlands business overseas.

Councillor Phil Bateman said today " The MWTF has 479 members across the Midlands Region, it is an organisation that is dedicated to improving business opportunities for UK firms across the globe. I have been much impressed with the actions that they are involved with.

Our whole nation is a trading nation, and here in Wolverhampton we have the sort of manufacturing industry that will benefit from any increased export activity. I learnt that the MWTF had been very active over the last month. They were supporting business opportunities in Poland also the Czech Republic. There were strong links also with the West Midlands Business Council who were also present at the meeting and who gave a further presentation. I was particularly interested with the information that was available about the diplomatic links, and the contact that was being forged here in the West Midlands with countries such as China and Japan.

There was also really good information on the benefits that the Olympics would have on West Midlands business. What is very clear is that there is a great deal of effort being undertaken to ensure that business and industry were being plugged into the right markets across the globe.

I think the pride for me is that the MWTF actually made the effort to contact the mayor's office and invited Wolverhampton to take part, because of the activity that the mayoral team have been generating, supporting the City Council and giving focus to our Industry,Business and Commerce.

It has been agreed with theMWTF that one of our officials will take a seat at the organisation. This is good news for the City as it will ensure that the right information can be fed into the organisation and of course we can also receive information that can only help our endeavour to invigorate our own local economy! we will be the only LA in that situation

I have spoken before about the contribution that Wolverhampton can make to the nations economic development I remain convinced that we are on the right course. Following that meeting I attended another meeting with Caparo Managing Director at their Oldbury headquarters. I discussed the Wolverhampton Business Champions initiative that I have instigated this year, and we also discussed the outcomes of the business leaders dinner that took place last night.

A visit of the rolling mill and steel tube manufacturing process then took place, and I met Wolverhampton residents working in the Rolling Mill. It was an interesting visit and one that improved my understanding of the manufacturing process."