The strength of the automotive sector in the West Midlands and how it can bring further investment to the region will be the topic of a major debate at an international conference.
Coventry and Warwickshire has teamed up with Birmingham and the Black Country to showcase the region’s world class automotive and engineering capability at the MIPIM property development and investment show next week.
Around 30 per cent of people in the UK who work in the automotive industry are based in the West Midlands, while, according to UKTI, about 20 per cent of everything the UK exports to China is from Jaguar Land Rover.
This session, held on the Thursday of the show, will look at how the region is the driving force in the renaissance of the UK automotive industry, combining cutting-edge research and development, leading academic excellence supported by an extensive skill base and supply chain.
That combination of capabilities has helped the region perform strongly in attracting inward investment and offers exciting opportunities for international and UK companies.
Les Ratcliffe, Head of Community Relations at Jaguar Land Rover, Coventry City Council CEO Martin Reeves and Bob Wilson, Development Director (Real Estate) at the University of Warwick, will be joined by Wouter Schuitemaker, Investment Director at Marketing Birmingham, and Black Country LEP director Tom Westley at the event.
Reeves, who will chair the session, said that the global spread of Jaguar Land Rover had raised awareness of the capability of the West Midlands in automotive engineering.
He said: “Jaguar Land Rover has been a huge driver for the local economy, and has invested around £10 million in the last five years and doubled its workforce.
“Production plants in China and Brazil will help underline the fact that Jaguar Land Rover is a revered global brand which is very much driven from this region, and that can only be god.
“But while the company is a flag bearer, our region has a great number of companies undertaking ground breaking work which is made possible by a unique set of skills that we have in our supply chain.
“That ranges from high quality small volume engineering, through to cutting-edge academic research which is then fed into the supply chain through the very strong links which exist between our universities and companies.
“Add to that developments such as the automotive and engineering technology park at MIRA and we have a very compelling case for companies looking to establish in the UK for the first time, or for those wishing to expand in an area which has the expertise they need to thrive.
“That is a message that we want to give not only as Coventry and Warwickshire, but as the wider region and MIPIM is an ideal platform for that.”