Well done Sir Albert! Some leadership at last with the assistance of Marketing Birmingham's inward investment vehicle 'Business Birmingham'....let us hope this great opportunity for the city of Birmingham is not squandered. I am a little sceptical about the jobs figure of 50,000. Having extensive experience of inward investment in Birmingham, having worked for the former Birmingham City Council inward investment and business promotion agency 'Locate in Birmingham' for nearly 17 years. LIB was subsumed into 'Business Birmingham' under the control of Neil Rami, Chief Executive of Marketing Birmingham, who could be seen on the regional news bulletins at lunchtime today as the mouthpiece of the plans. These job creation figures are often plucked out of the air or concocted 'on the back of a fag packet'. It would be better to see costed and realistic job creation figures rather than a somewhat unrealistic (it seems to me....?) figure for 'jobs created' of 50,000 which makes good copy and gets the media salivating at the mouth at such an inflated figure. Now please let us turn our attention urgently to getting the transport infrastructure in place which will enable these promised jobs to become a reality. Are we going to get on with the building of HS2 and realise a more efficient, larger BHX with much better conectivity to the major economies of America's West Coast, China and India? We need a major boost to Birmingham International Airport which in my opinion should be renamed: 'William Shakespeare International Airport' now to reflect its proposed enhanced status as a real international airport like Manchester, instead of the 'piffling little regional airport' that we have currently in order to give Birmingham Airport real global and international recognition. Or are these plans for the rail and aviation infrastructure which would really make a difference to Birmingham and enable us to at last 'punch our weight' on the international stage going to be implemented at last or are they just hollow words, empty phrases and promises, mere'Pie in the Sky' for Birmingham uttered by a Londoncentric, Tory-dominated Coalition Government.....Reasons to be Cheerful (Part 3) though.......... well done Brum! Now to the real work of convincing Cameron that we're worth it!

Keith Bracey

Well done to Sir Albert Bore and his team. Once again Birmingham is showing the way in kick starting our economy with the best manufacuring skills available in the UK Let us hope that Vince Cable's Banking initiative lives up to it's billing and provides further support to the region.

rod ackrill