City region delegates in fresh trade mission to China

Coun Judith Blake by the South Entrance to Leeds City Statiion....2nd August 2016 ..Picture by Simon Hulme

Leeds City Council leader Judith Blake and LEP chairman Roger Marsh are visiting Hangzhou and Shanghai as part of a trade delegation aimed at “reinforcing the region’s proactive approach to China and strengthening government to government relations” a spokesman said.

Accompanying them are representatives from the University of Leeds, Leeds Beckett University, Leeds College of Art, Scarborough Group and Munroe K.

The visit will see figures from the City Region meet with senior government and business leaders; including a further meeting with Chinese e-commerce platform, Kaola.com, which launched a search in late 2016, to find exporters based in the Leeds City Region that want to break into the growing Far East market.

The meeting will explore and agree further opportunities for Leeds City Region businesses to export to China and capitalise on the demand for British products by the growing Chinese middle class.

Coun Blake said: “Through trade and investment missions such as this, we are able to further cultivate this relationship and profile the City and wider City Region. In particular we can highlight our sector strengths such as in Big Data, Healthcare and Technology.

Professor Yu, Vice-Chancellor: International, University of Leeds said: “We are determined to support Leeds as being an innovative, strong and successful investment alternative to London.”