D2N2 Local Enterprise Partnership is backing a new initiative by East Midlands Chamber of Commerce to draw more investment into the region by publishing a “road map” to establish a formula that will help deliver on key goals to level up, reboot the economy and boost post-Brexit growth in global trade.
The document called “A Centre of Trading Excellence: A Business Manifesto for Growth in the East Midlands and Beyond” is being widely distributed amongst policy makers and decision takers in Westminster and Whitehall.
The manifesto covers three key pillars:
- The Big Opportunity: Develop the East Midlands as a Centre of Trading Excellence by focusing on the ‘four Is’:
- Incentivise longer-term private sector investment at more generous levels
- Support greater levels of innovation through enhanced R&D packages and easier links into universities
- Improve infrastructure by raising the current level of public investment in the region to parity with the national average
- Cut red tape and reduce barriers to international trade, increasing incentives for those looking to grow their international presence or enter new markets for the first time.
- Getting the basics right: Provide the levers to drive growth via the cultivation of a wider business ecosystem geared around supporting success, which should:
- Focus on incentives to invest in people
- Support certainty for businesses by developing a long-term approach to business taxation and regulation
- Ensure businesses and communities are digitally and physically connected locally and with the wider world
- Nurturing competitiveness the right way: Now is not the time to go back on the national commitments we have made to sustainability and the net zero agenda. D2N2 supports the Chamber’s view that long-term planning allows businesses to grow sustainably and creates opportunities for the UK to be world leaders in the products and processes that will drive global growth for decades to come.
David Williams, deputy chairman of the D2N2 Local Enterprise Partnership added: “The East Midlands region is renowned as an outstanding growth hub both for start-up businesses and established firms alike.
“As well as benefiting from transport links boosting connectivity to and from the region, the innovative development programme of regenerating brownfield sites is transforming our cities and wider region into a world-class arena to conduct business. It’s time for MPs to take note and recognise we are a region to be reckoned with.”
To read A Centre of Trading Excellence: A Business Manifesto for Growth in the East Midlands and Beyond, click here.
