British Business Centres to open in Slovakia and Hungary
MORE than 60 small businesses, including one in Sheffield, have begun an intensive, five day, trade mission aimed at boosting trade with Central and Eastern Europe.
The trip, led by trade minister Lord Livingston, forms part of a broader effort to meet UK Trade & Investment’s (UKTI) target of doubling trade with Central and Eastern Europe by £30bn by 2020.
The delegation of businesses includes companies from the energy, rail, healthcare, life sciences, retail and security sectors, reflecting some of the highest value opportunities for British businesses in this region.
During the visit Lord Livingston will launch two new British Business Centres in Slovakia and Hungary, transforming the quantity and quality of support available to small and mid-sized UK firms exporting to those countries. Each business centre will be staffed with trade teams.
A British Business Centre for Poland opened last year and business centres in the Czech Republic, Romania and Slovenia are due to open shortly.
Lord Livingston said: “This is a dynamic and exciting growth market. British firms have doubled trade exports to Eastern and Central European countries in the last ten years but we still lag behind our rivals.
“By 2020, I want to double exports to this region, so we are ramping up our support for British firms on the ground by opening a network of business centres across the region and increasing the number of trade missions to introduce more British businesses to potential buyers.”
The four countries of Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, along with five others in the Central Europe Network (Austria, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia and Croatia), have a combined population of over 100m people, a combined GDP in excess of £1tn and annual average growth rates that in recent years have far exceeded most other European countries.
These countries also have low levels of public debt compared with the Eurozone average and the region is about to benefit from £124 billion of EU funding between 2014 and 2020, enhancing investment prospects in infrastructure, energy and innovation.
