Rona Fairhead, minister for trade and export promotion, has pledged to be a “co-ordinating force” to help the industry get the support it needs from different government departments.
“We do this collaboratively,” Fairhead said in her first interview this morning at MIPIM UK, just eight days after starting her new role. “If you can identify big opportunities overseas that would utilise your skills, then come to us. We can provide either a convening panel, and in some cases we can provide financial support with UKTI.”
Fairhead, the former chairwoman of the BBC Trust and chief executive of the Financial Times Group, was appointed earlier this year as an unpaid minister of state at the Department for International Trade. She replaces Lord Price, the former managing director of Waitrose, who resigned from the government.
In her new role, she is responsible for creating a new export strategy and building relationships with business and government overseas. Trade negotiations are being led by Greg Hands, minister of state in the Department for International Trade.
Asked how the industry could get more support over concerns about the construction industry’s workforce after Brexit, Fairhead said: “If it’s about construction in the UK, keep working with us. Keep working with the industrial policy team, and we will try to be a co-ordinating force, as much as we can, with other departments.
“A lot of people realise that if you have economic growth, then you tend to have a more stable, secure country, and if we can help do any of the co-ordination, come to us.”
Fairhead and minister for investment Mark Garnier today unveiled a £1.3bn Northern Ireland pitchbook of property investment opportunities which it will be promoting to overseas investors. Fairhead said she did not agree with anti-overseas investor rhetoric.
She said: “I really want to encourage investment. I’m a great believer in economic growth being able to help our whole society. I would ask anybody to look at some of the projects that are here today – regeneration projects, social housing, homes for elderly people – and I think they will see that we have people who are happy to invest here, that we have the opportunities for them. It improves the UK. I think we should be encouraging that.”
Fairhead said her priorities in her new role would be building policies and an ecosystem that encourage exports, opening new and wider markets for UK companies, and promoting the UK’s skills and supply chains into other countries.
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