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Are the Nation's Trading Interests Being Sacrificed to Political Expediency?
01 Dec 2004
The 2005 programme of overseas tradeshows, missions and seminars at which UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) funding and support is available to UK firms has just been released. Sadly, 2005 may well be the last year that this assistance is delivered nationally under the SESA (Support for Exhibitions and Seminars Abroad) scheme. The Engineering Industries Association (EIA), along with other industry bodies represented by Sponsors Alliance, is urging its members to use their influence to ensure the nation's trading interests are not sacrificed to political expediency and bureaucratic idiosyncrasy. The EIA's Karen Finegold explains why? It costs UKTI over £150m to pass just £38m of programme spend to the industry representative bodies who are accredited to assist small firms to develop international trade.
Accredited trade organisations (ATOs), which are trade associations and chambers of commerce, deliver funding schemes and services to support exporters at little, or no cost to the Government.
Last year ATOs took more than 9,000 companies abroad to some 450 trade shows and on trade missions each year. The funding effectively reduces the cost of participation in selected overseas exhibitions and enables exhibitors to take advantage of grants of 50% of the expenditure on stand space, construction and freight up to a ceiling of between £1,600 and £2,000.
Yet current plans will see the scrapping of these services.
Treasury officials have demanded a significant reduction in the £38million budget and will be imposing even narrower eligibility criteria. They have also instructed that a greater share of the remaining fund is spent on attracting foreign firms to establish in the UK.
Ministers have decided that rather than giving cash grants to companies, they should use the money to employ more staff based in the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) and Business Links to work with companies to develop their overseas sales.
Sponsors Alliance wants to see the continuation of grant support delivered nationally (not regionally) by appropriate trade bodies with sector expertise. Otherwise there will be a loss of UK trading profile abroad and a considerable loss of export earnings, which the country can ill afford to lose.
It does make sense, however, to reduce the huge establishment cost of UKTI, which has been allowed to grow unchecked since 1997.
In order to promote the overseas market for the engineering industry, the following overseas exhibitions and trade missions have been successful in securing subsidies from UK Trade & Investment, and further details are available from Karen Finegold(KFinegold@aol.com) www.eia.co.uk
OVERSEAS EXHIBITIONS TO:
National Manufacturing Week, 7-10 March 2005, Chicago, USA Machine Tool Asia (MTA) Vietnam, 9-12 March 2005, Vietnam MTA Singapore, 10-13 May 2005, Singapore MSV International Engineering Fair/ International Fair For Transport and Logistics, 3-7 October 2005, Brno, Czech Republic Metalex, International Machine Tools and Metalworking Technology, 17-20 November 2005, Bangkok, Thailand Midest, Industrial Subcontracting Exhibition, 6-9 December 2005, Paris, France Manufacturing Indonesia, 7-10 December 2005, Jakarta, Indonesia
TRADE MISSIONS TO:
Chicago, USA, 6-10 March 2005 to coincide with National Manufacturing Week Bangkok, Thailand, 14-18 November 2005 to coincide with Metalex
