April 2007

NEWS

Winners and losers in Brown’s last Budget
Chancellor Gordon Brown unveiled his latest Budget on 21 March – his 11th and most likely his last before, as is widely expected, he succeeds Tony Blair as Prime Minister sometime this summer. Mr Brown produced a number of surprises, although analysts were left to decide who had actually gained from the changes and who had lost out.

One of the headline measures was a cut in corporation tax, from 30 per cent to 28 per cent, effective from April 2008. Balancing this was a cut in capital allowances, from 25 per cent to 20 per cent, effective in 2009-10, which will more than claw back the cost of the tax cut. Small firms will be able to claim 100 per cent tax relief on new capital investment up to $100,000, but will have to pay a higher tax rate – up from 20 per cent to 22 per cent, to take effect in 2009. Other measures included a new six-month restriction on tax relief on empty business properties (three months for empty retail space) and the phasing out of tax relief for industrial buildings.

There was also a surprise cut of 2 per cent in the basic rate of personal income tax, from 22 per cent to 20 per cent, from April 2008. The starting rate band of 10 per cent, however, will be abolished from April 2009. The top rate of income tax (40 per cent) will be applied to annual earnings from $86,000 (which will also be the cut-off point for National Insurance contributions) instead of $76,000 as at present, and there will be increased levels of working tax credit for families. The inheritance tax allowance will rise from $570,000 to $700,000 by 2010.

Setting out the economic background to his Budget, Mr Brown forecast GDP growth of 2.5–3 per cent for the next two years, with inflation falling this year to his target rate of 2 per cent and remaining at that level in 2008-09. He predicted a $22 billion surplus in public finances in the current economic cycle, with investment growing 6 per cent in the past year. Business investment was up 7 per cent and inward investment up 10 per cent. Government expenditure would be $86 billion this year, he predicted, rising to $120 billion by 2012, while net public borrowing would be $70 billion in 2007-08, decreasing to $52 billion by 2012. Asset sales in the next four years are slated to release an extra $72 billion.

Among new measures, Mr Brown announced a more generous system of tax credits for research and development spending which, he said, would be worth an extra $200 million a year to businesses. The R&D tax credit rate will rise from 150 per cent to 175 per cent for small companies and from 125 per cent to 130 per cent for large companies from April 2008. At the same time, the size of company that can benefit from the top rate of R&D tax credit will double, from 250 employees to 500 employees.

There was further good news for scientists with a 25 per cent increase in government spending on science over the four years to 2010-11. The civil science budget, split between the Department for Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Department for Education and Skills, will rise from $10 billion to $12.6 billion, representing an annual average increase in real terms of 2.5–2.7 per cent. Two new knowledge transfer networks will be established to build on the success of the media and digital communications industries.

In financial services, Mr Brown announced that carbon credits held in offshore funds will be treated as exempt from tax on profits, in the same way as equities and bonds. This is expected to boost growing interest in this area from the hedge fund industry. Investors in ‘authorised’ property unit trusts will be given the same tax-efficient status as Reits (real estate investment trusts).

The total education budget will reach $148 billion by 2010, while Mr Brown announced plans to sell $12 billion of student debt to the private sector. The National Health Service will receive an extra $20 billion in funding this year, and small businesses will receive extra funding to train young people. The defence budget will receive an extra $172 million in 2007-08.

With an eye to environmental concerns, the Chancellor increased road tax for the highest-polluting vehicles such as 4x4s and cut VAT on environmental products for the home. The annual increase on fuel duty will be suspended until October, but prices will rise by 2p a litre in 2008 and 1.8p in 2009. Mr Brown increased landfill tax, but exempted new ‘zero carbon’ homes from stamp duty land tax until 2012.

The reduction in corporation tax was broadly welcomed by business leaders, many of whom have been urging the Chancellor to cut rates to match reductions in other European countries. “The change will benefit those big, profitable companies that might otherwise be thinking of shifting their activities to lower tax regimes,” said Richard Lambert, director-general of employers’ group the Confederation of British Industry (CBI). The UK now has the seventh highest tax rate of 27 European countries.

However, like several others, Mr Lambert expressed concern that the overall burden of taxation would not be reduced, and that cuts in capital allowances would hit some businesses hard, particularly manufacturers, and that this would discourage investment. Stephen Radley, chief economist at the EEF, the trade body for manufacturers, said: “We are concerned about the impact the cuts will have on capital-intensive manufacturers in the short term.”

Mike Lynch, chief executive of software company Autonomy, commented: “It was a very positive Budget, sending a very strong message about the importance of education, R&D and the science base in this country.” Mr Lambert meanwhile called for further action from the government. “The challenge now is to get a grip on public spending so as to create the headroom that will be needed for further tax cuts in the future,” he remarked.


‘Impressive’ performance stokes confidence in economy
A strong performance by exporters in February helped the UK manufacturing sector to grow at its fastest rate for two-and-a-half years and encouraged producers to increase factory gate prices, according to the latest survey by the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS). This was the nineteenth successive month of expansion, and exceeded City forecasts. Meanwhile, research by the Bank of England seems to suggest that its three recent increases in the interest rate, which now stands at 5.25 per cent, have done little to knock confidence in the housing market, with mortgage approvals increasing from 114,000 in December to 120,000 in January.

The International Monetary Fund has also expressed confidence in the UK’s economic performance, describing it as “impressive”. The Washington-based organisation has revised up its projection for the UK’s economic growth in 2007 from 2.75 per cent to 2.9 per cent. However, the IMF also warned that interest rates may have to rise further if wage settlements are not kept under control. Many analysts believe that a further rise in interest rates to 5.5 per cent is likely at some point within the next few months.


UK entrepreneurs buck global trend
The spirit of entrepreneurism remains strong in the UK and last year helped it to buck the trend for declining numbers of start-up companies in the world’s richest economies, according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, a worldwide study of early-stage start-up activity. The survey found that the rate of decline in start-up companies in the UK – from 6.2 per cent in 2005 to 5.8 per cent in 2006 – was statistically insignificant. There were much bigger falls in new business start-ups, however, in the US (down from 12.4 per cent to 10 per cent), Canada (9.3 per cent to 7.1 per cent) and France (5.4 per cent to 4.4 per cent).

The proportion of adults starting businesses in the UK is higher than in other European countries, although it remains lower than in the US and in emerging economies such as India and China. The proportion of people running established businesses in the UK is 93 per cent of the start-up rate, suggesting that most new ventures survive, according to the report. Women, however, are only half as likely to be involved in a start-up in the UK as men, which represents a wider gender gap than in the US or Germany.

Overall, levels of entrepreneurial activity are highest among the 35–44 age group. The UK’s most entrepreneurial region is the South West, where 7.6 per cent of the adult population run their own business. “The UK has generally very positive attitudes towards entrepreneurship, especially towards entrepreneurial skills and the perception of start-up opportunities in comparison to the other G8 countries,” said Rebecca Harding, the report’s author.


UK universities lead the way in innovation
British universities are just as efficient at commercialising new academic ideas as their US counterparts, according to a new report by research firm Library House. Stanford in California, which works with companies such as Yahoo! and Sun Microsystems, generated almost twice as much in 2006 as Cambridge University, the UK’s top performer. However, the other two top universities in the US, Washington and Wisconsin, were outperformed by a number of British institutions, including Imperial College and University College London, and Oxford, Bristol, Edinburgh, Newcastle and Manchester universities.

Protein Production Facility, Oxford University. Picture by Philip Sayer	Synthetic chemistry research building, Bristol University

Southampton University did particularly well; considering it is ranked more than 100 places lower than Washington and Wisconsin in the respected Shanghai Jiao rankings of university research quality. On average (again with the exception of Stanford), spin-out companies in the UK also receive more money to develop than do their US counterparts. The findings, according to Library House, suggest that British universities have become very efficient at identifying new academic research that has commercial potential.

Another poll by Fierce Biotech, a Michigan-based monitor of the biotechnology industry, ranks Scotland as one of the world’s top five regions for biotech companies. “Scotland has emerged as a leader in matching world-class science with new therapeutics, particularly in the field of embryonic stem cell research. [It] has wisely concentrated much of its efforts on building its biotech centre around its reputation for leading-edge research into stem cells,” said the organisation.

Among the companies and institutions active in Scotland’s biotech sector are Cellartis of Sweden, which has a research partnership with the University of Glasgow, the Roslin Biocentre in Edinburgh, Edinburgh University and the Centre for Genomic Technology and Informatics. Dundee University is collaborating with a group of pharmaceutical companies on treatments for cancer, diabetes and infectious diseases. Support for the life sciences industry is channelled through the Life Sciences Alliance, which aims to coordinate the development of a national development strategy.

Picture from Cellartis AB

The city of Dundee has been short listed by the New York-based Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) as one of seven cities worldwide in the running for the title of “intelligent community of the year”. The non-profit think-tank said that each of the seven cities on the shortlist was “a model for economic development in the 21st century”. Of Dundee, it said, “Over a 15-year period, this city of 142,000 has built the foundations of a digital, knowledge-based economy on the ruins of de-industrialisation by forging collaboration among government, business and a vibrant university sector.” The result of the contest – in which Dundee’s rivals include Ottowa and Waterloo in Canada, Tallinn in Estonia and Sunderland in North East England – will be announced in New York on 18 May. Past winners include Glasgow and Taipei.

One of the most advanced super-computers in the UK is to be located at Edinburgh University’s Parallel Computing Centre (EPCC). The $226 million machine, known as Hector (High End Computing Terascale Resources) will be remotely accessed by researchers across the country for a range of applications, from developing new drugs to modelling epidemics and climate change. It will cover an area the size of two tennis courts, will have the computing power of around 14,000 desktop PCs and will be capable of 60 million million calculations a second. It has a memory of 35,000 GB and disk storage space of 700,000 GB. Hector will be installed in October and its useful life will continue until 2014.

Two Welsh business incubation facilities – Technium Swansea and @Wales Digital Media in Cardiff – have been placed in the top ten in a survey to find the world’s best incubation centres. The global survey, run by the Science Alliance, attracted 50 entries from 22 different countries, including the US, China and Europe. Rankings were compiled from scores in four different categories, including self-sustainability, fastest growth and client feedback. @Wales was rated second in the fastest growth category, and 8th overall. Technium Swansea, which ranked 9th overall, was sixth out of 50 in the category analysing return on public investment.

Technium incubation centre, Wales

Time for “big push” in biotech investment
Prime Minister Tony Blair has officially opened the new European Development Centre of US biotech giant Amgen. The centre in Uxbridge, west London is the company’s largest investment outside the US, and will accommodate more than 300 new staff. Together with Amgen’s other UK facility at Cambridge in Eastern England, it will support the company’s largest ever international clinical trial programme. “This investment confirms the UK’s position as a major worldwide scientific hub for the company. We chose London because of its excellent reputation for clinical research and pool of highly qualified and talented scientists,” said Willard Dere, Amgen’s senior vice president and international chief medical officer.

Dr Willard Dere, Chief International Medical Officer, Amgen, explaining the scientific background
to the development work being undertaken at Uxbridge to Prime Minister Tony Blair

Mr Blair took the opportunity to announce further support for the biotech industry, saying that “now [was] the moment for a big push” in improving the environment for investment. He announced a top-level study, chaired by venture capitalist Sir David Cooksey, to look into increased funding and other incentives that would help companies in the sector to grow.

HRH the Princess Royal attended the official opening of biopharmaceutical company PPD Inc’s new facility, Fleming House, in Lanarkshire in Scotland. The 34,000 sq ft facility, located on the Strathclyde Business Park in Belshill, was built by the US company to allow for the consolidation of its Scottish workforce. PPD, based in North Carolina, employs more than 280 people in Lanarkshire, who are engaged in clinical development, bio-statistics, project management and data management services. The company is a leading global contract research organisation, with offices in 28 countries around the world. It provides discovery, development and post-approval services as well as compound partnering programmes, with clients and partners from a wide range of different sectors.

UCB, the Belgian company which three years ago bought Celltech, then the UK’s biggest biotechnology company, is to hire 100 new scientists at its research and development headquarters in Slough, South East England. The Celltech acquisition made UCB one of the five biggest investors in R&D in the UK, and the Brussels-based company has since made Britain its global research base. Since the takeover it had already increased the scientific workforce at Slough from 580 to 805, even before the latest expansion.

The company has combined Celltech’s expertise in using antibodies to research complex diseases such as Parkinson’s with UCB’s expertise in chemical compound-based drugs and its extensive distribution network. Its most promising new drug, Cimzia, was developed in a Celltech lab: this is expected to be approved in Europe and the US as a treatment for Crohn’s disease later this year, and will also be used to treat rheumatoid arthritis. UCB’s biggest-selling drug, Keppra, which is used to treat leprosy, enjoyed sales growth of 36 per cent in 2006.

Japanese pharmaceutical company Eisai, meanwhile, has begun construction work on a new $200 million European headquarters and manufacturing centre at Hatfield in Hertfordshire in Eastern England. The centre is due to commence operations in 2008, producing drugs such as Aricept and Aciphex for stomach ulcers, and will create 500 new jobs. Eisai, which specialises in drugs for pain relief, stomach ulcers and conditions such as Alzheimer’s and epilepsy, already has laboratories at University College London which carry out research into neurodegenerative diseases. The company’s president, Haruo Naito, said that it was attracted by the UK’s scientific skills base. “The UK has an excellent reputation for scientific innovation, especially in the area of life sciences,” he commented.


London office rents set to rise further
The availability of prime commercial property in the Central London office market fell in 2006 as take-up continued to increase, according to the latest core property survey from consultants DTZ Research. Rents have risen due to a shortage of Grade A space, a trend that DTZ predicts will continue into 2007, although a marked increase in development completions is expected in 2008, especially in the City. Availability at the end of 2006 was 13.6 million sq ft, a fall of 11 per cent from 15.3 million sq ft at the end of the third quarter. The ratio of available space to stock is currently 6.2 per cent, the lowest since 2000, with the availability for Grade A space at 1.4 per cent.

Take-up saw a surge in the fourth quarter to take the total for 2006 to 16 million sq ft, up from 13.8 million sq ft in 2005. There were a significant number of major pre-lets, particularly in Docklands and fringe areas. Docklands had its best year in terms of take-up since 2001, and the City recorded its highest letting levels since 2000, reflecting the strong performance of global capital markets. West End areas such as Mayfair and St James’s are also emerging as significant bases for financial services companies.

Headline rents in the City rose to $110 per sq ft in Q4 2006, up from $108 per sq ft in the previous quarter, while headline rents in the West End rose from $160 to $165 per sq ft. Prime rents in Mayfair and St James’s reached $180 per sq ft. “Given the near-term shortage of Grade A space in most markets, we expect continued high rental growth in 2007,” concluded DTZ.


Prestige projects to provide quality accommodation
A number of significant new city centre and out-of-town developments are under way in northern England. In the North East, work has started on two new buildings at the Spectrum Business Park at Seaham in County Durham. The 34-acre site is being reclaimed from former colliery land and, when complete, is expected to provide up to 400,000 sq ft of quality office space. The two latest buildings, Spectrum 4 and 5, will offer 35,000 sq ft and 40,000 sq ft of space respectively, with each containing up to six self-contained office suites. Construction is scheduled for completion by the end of the year.

Spectrum Business Park, Seaham, County Durham

Work has also begun to transform a former brewery site into the hub of Newcastle Science City. The project aims to create an environment that will bring together world-class researchers from local universities with high-tech businesses to develop new products and industries. The initiative is targeting commercialisation in four key areas: stem cell biology and regenerative medicine, ageing and health, molecular engineering, and energy and the environment. Already $50 million has been invested in the North East Stem Cell Institute, a joint venture between Durham and Newcastle universities.

Middlehaven, a 250-acre development in the centre of Middlesbrough, in the Tees Valley, scored a notable achievement in mid-March when it won the ‘big urban project’ category at the MIPIM property awards in France. Designs for the project took the architectural ‘Oscar’ when Middlehaven went head-to-head with two other short listed projects, the King’s Cross Station redevelopment in London and a project in Bursa, Turkey. It also beat projects from Dublin, Hong Kong, St Petersburg, Mexico City, Paris and Kuala Lumpur. The Middlehaven team consisted of Tees Valley Regeneration, developer BioRegional Quintain and architects Studio Egret West. The mixed-use regeneration scheme will include more than 800,000 sq ft of office space and will create up to 3,000 new jobs.

Award-winning Middlehaven, Middlesbrough

In the North West, infrastructure group Peel Holdings has unveiled a $9 billion redevelopment plan for Birkenhead Docks in the Wirral, in one of the country’s biggest regeneration schemes. The 18 million sq ft project, known as ‘Wirral Waters’, will create a mixed-use waterfront development that is slated to attract large amounts of inward investment and create thousands of new jobs. More than 500 acres of brownfield land will be redeveloped to create new leisure, retail and business facilities, along with improvements to the port areas at Twelve Quays and West Float.

In Liverpool, the new $46 million Centre for Tropical and Infectious Diseases (CTID) has been topped out at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. The facility will develop and trial new drugs, vaccines and insecticides for the developing world, and will reinforce Liverpool’s reputation as one of the world’s leading tropical medicine research institutes. The topping out ceremony was held on 13 March, at the beginning of National Science and Engineering Week.

In Cumbria, construction work has begun on the new Nuclear Academy facility at Lillyhall Industrial Estate near Workington. The $38 million academy will be a world-class centre of excellence for the development of skills in the nuclear industry. In Lancashire, new office space is available to let at the Matrix Park and Hurstwood Court business parks in Leyland, while an extra 9,000 sq ft of space is to be built at Lancashire Business Park in the South Ribble area.

Japanese car giants commit to UK production
Japanese car-maker Toyota has begun production of a new hatchback model at its Burnaston plant in Derbyshire, East Midlands. The Auris hatchback will be exported across Europe and to 70 countries worldwide, with sales forecast to reach 150,000 in 2007, rising to 200,000 annually on a full-year basis. The company has also announced $200 million of extra investment in its engine assembly plant at Deeside, North Wales, where it will produce petrol engines for the Auris. Toyota has invested $3.5 billion to date in its two UK manufacturing facilities, and employs over 4,800 people. In 2006 it built 282,215 vehicles at Burnaston, its third successive year of record production.

The new Toyota Auris hatchback is being produced for export at Burnaston, Derby

Subaru’s UK division has opened a new $20 million headquarters at Coleshill near Birmingham Airport in the West Midlands. The company says it will be launching an “unprecedented” number of new models in the UK in the next 18 months, including its first diesel engine. “This new HQ should impress staff, dealers and the general public of our long-term investment in Subaru,” said the company’s UK chairman and CEO, Bob Edmiston.

Nissan meanwhile has shown a big vote of confidence in its UK production arm by starting to export cars from the UK to Japan for the first time in ten years. It is shipping consignments of the Qashqai, produced at its plant in Sunderland, North East England to its home country, renaming the model ‘Dualis’ for the Japanese market. The Qashqai went into production at Sunderland – which is Europe’s most productive car plant – in December last year, since when 20,000 vehicles have been built. “We export our cars to more than 45 countries around the world, but there is definitely something special about shipping to Japan,” said Trevor Mann, Nissan’s vice-president of manufacturing in the UK.

Nissan is exporting its Qashqai model from Sunderland to Japan

Luxury car marque Aston Martin – best-known for its association with James Bond – is returning to British ownership, after Ford agreed to sell the company to a UK-led consortium for $924 million. The consortium is headed by Dave Richards, boss of Oxford-based motorsports firm Prodrive, and also involves US banker John Sinders and Kuwaiti investors. Ford bought a 75 per cent stake in the company in 1987 and subsequently acquired the remaining stock; it will retain an $80 million stake in the company. Aston Martin will remain at its purpose-built factory at Gaydon in Warwickshire in the West Midlands, where it employs 1,800 people.

A $52 million scheme has been launched to boost development of the UK’s $10 billion motorsports industry. The Motorsport Development UK (MDUK) programme will be backed by a number of regional development agencies (RDAs), together with government departments and private industry. The five-year programme will work to encourage innovation in the industry, including the development of energy-efficient racing, and will support businesses through a virtual Motorsport Academy. It will also run a Learning Grid that will work with schools, colleges and universities to encourage participation in the industry.

RDA Advantage West Midlands is contributing $4.6 million to the initiative: the industry is a major contributor to the region’s economy, being worth around $1.7 billion a year. The West Midlands are home to a number of world-class companies, including Prodrive, Ricardo and Zytek, as well as hosting the HQ of the Motorsport Industry Association.


New investment to enhance port facilities
The government has granted approval for the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company’s proposed Seaforth River Terminal near Liverpool in North West England. The new terminal is likely to bring significant economic and social benefits to Merseyside and to the wider North West region, creating up to 180 jobs directly and many more indirectly.

The new terminal will be able to handle post-Panamax container vessels, which are too large for the lock gates at the existing Seaforth terminal. When fully developed, it will be capable of handling 500,000 teu a year, doubling current capacity. The terminal will cover an area of about 42 acres, which will be reclaimed from the River Mersey and from the foreshore in front of the Royal Seaforth Dock in Bootle.

Plans have also been announced to improve rail freight access to Associated British Ports (ABP)’s Humber ports in Yorkshire and Humber. A partnership of organisations has worked together to develop a package of schemes to enhance facilities at Hull and Immingham. Some $26.2 million will be spent to improve infrastructure on the Hull Docks Branch Line which, when complete, will increase capacity from ten trains a day to 22 in each direction. A further $20 million will be invested in the Brigg Line, south of the River Humber, mainly to facilitate the transport of coal to Cottam and West Burton power stations.


Regional news
Searchrev, a California-based developer of search engine marketing technology, is setting up its new European base in London. Europe’s online advertising market is growing rapidly, with the paid search market expected to triple during the next three to five years. Research shows that UK spending on internet advertising grew by more than 40 per cent between 2005 and 2006, far faster than any other form of mainstream advertising. “It was decided that Britain would make the ideal launch pad in Europe, especially as the total paid search spend in the UK alone was predicted to break the $2.2 billion mark for 2006 – a year-on-year growth of 65 per cent,” said Mark Hindmarsh, managing director of SearchRev Europe.

UK-based luxury yacht maker Sunseeker has agreed terms with American-owned Luhrs Marine to purchase its yacht manufacturing facilities at Osprey Quay in Portland, Dorset in South West England. Sunseeker plans to create 500 skilled jobs over four years, with production at the 11.5-acre site set to begin as early as May this year. Sunseeker, based in Poole, is the world’s largest privately-owned builder of motor yachts, and employs some 1,800 staff.

Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia is teaming up with the University of Cambridge, in Eastern England, to research nanotechnology applications. The two partners will set up a joint research facility at the university’s West Cambridge site, where initially ten Nokia researchers will work with Cambridge’s Nanoscience Centre and the electrical division of the engineering department. The company hopes to add more staff as the project develops. It will focus on ways in which nanotechnology can be incorporated into phone materials and displays and how the technology can be used to monitor environments, together with other applications such as energy efficiency.

A new technology centre, the Serious Games Institute, will be the first in the UK to use advanced computer games technology to drive innovation and training. The institute, located at the Coventry University Technology Park in the West Midlands, will build on the region’s expertise in games development to diversity into non-entertainment areas such as simulation and education. Computer games account for a significant portion of the region’s IT sector, with 160 interactive media companies located in the West Midlands, among them big names such as Codemaster, Blitz Games and Games Domain. Costing a total of $14 million, the Serious Games Institute has been supported by $6.6 million in funding from RDA Advantage West Midlands. Currently under construction, it will link into satellite centres at the universities of Coventry and Warwick when it is up and running.

Australian-owned engineering group Bradken Operations Pty Ltd has acquired Firth Rixson Castings in Scunthorpe, Yorkshire and Humber for a reported $34 million. Firth Rixson is the oldest foundry in the industrial town, having been established some 90 years ago. It will now form part of a new power and cement division, and is slated for expansion under its new owner. Bradken is based in Kilburn, South Australia and its main business is the manufacture of parts for quarrying trucks and equipment.

Sydac, an Australian-owned leader in the development of customised technology solutions for train driver simulation and training systems, is to set up a permanent UK office in Derby, East Midlands to support its growing client base in the UK and across Europe. It will create 26 new jobs and aims to channel $1 million of business each year through local supply chains. “Having a base in the East Midlands will offer us a central location and good effective communication links to further increase our business prospects,” said Paul Williamson, the company’s business development manager.

Global financial services group GE Money is to invest millions of dollars in a new UK office in North Tyneside in North East England. The investment will create over 400 new jobs, almost doubling the company’s UK workforce as it expands its call centre facilities, as well as sales and management positions. The 100,000 sq ft office (which also represents GE Money’s biggest commercial property investment to date) will be fully operational by June 2008.

Saudi delegates visiting the North East

A senior delegation from Saudi Arabia’s University of Jubail visited five universities in the North East in March. Hosted by investment agency One NorthEast and NEPIC (North East Process Industry Cluster), they were invited to see at first-hand the ongoing R&D in the region and the investment potential of its process industries, including the chemical, pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors. Both the University of Jubail and chemical firm SABIC have strong links with the Saudi government, which is a major player in the process industry sector. The catalyst for the visit was SABIC’s recent purchase of Huntsman’s European Base Chemicals and Polymers business, located in the region’s Tees Valley.

Dialog Semiconductor of Germany is to set up a design centre in Edinburgh in Scotland, where it will recruit local engineers and establish research programmes in collaboration with local universities. The company, which makes mixed signal design chips for multiple smartphone applications, carried out an extensive search worldwide for the right location. “We finally selected Edinburgh because of the combination of design skills, innovation culture and universities with relevant research programmes that exist there,” said Gary Duncan, the company’s vice president of engineering.

SGL Technic Ltd, a subsidiary of German-based SGL Group, has announced a $44 million investment to expand its manufacturing facility in Muir of Ord, near Inverness in Scotland. The investment will create up to 64 new jobs over the next three years and will safeguard the jobs of the existing 85-strong workforce. SGL, headquartered in Wiesbaden, is a leader in the R&D and manufacture of products made from carbon, graphite and composite materials. The new investment is in response to worldwide demand for carbon fibre from the electronics, aerospace, automotive and textiles industries and from new technology sectors such as renewable energy. The company was assisted by a $4 million Regional Selective Assistance (RSA) grant from the Scottish Executive.

US-owned financial services firm First Data International has opened a major new operations and contact centre in Glasgow, Scotland, with a ceremony attended by Scotland’s First Minister, Jack McConnell. First Data, a global leader in electronic commerce and payment services for merchants and financial institutions, expects to create more than 430 jobs at the centre over the next five years, with the first 70 positions due to be filled by the end of March. The centre will provide additional capacity to support the company’s continuing growth, as it extends its portfolio of payment services. Financial services are regarded as one of Scotland’s key sectors, generating $14 billion annually, or 7 per cent of the Scottish economy.

Another US company, Ceridian, one of the world’s largest providers of human resource services, is to expand its existing operations in Glasgow, adding 250 jobs to its current workforce of 80 over the next three years. “It is our objective to scale our Glasgow facility into the most modern and effective centre for human resources customer support and software development in the UK. Our Glasgow office will be a centre of excellence for HR administration in support of best practice human capital management,” said Doug Sawers, managing director of Ceridian in the UK.

To find out about business exhibitions and events happening around the United Kingdom click on the EVENTS button.