West Midlands 2012
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Regardless of your company size or sector, the Chamber aims to help you establish and develop your profile, make new contacts and create business opportunities. The Chamber Group’s events team also offer an event management service that can help you organise your own event.
• Aid-funded Business Service Birmingham’s International Trade Team continues to deliver UK Trade and Investment’s national Aid-Funded Business Service. AFBS helps UK business into winning work with the major donor agencies and NGOs. Companies interested in selling goods or services to the UN, World Bank or other multilateral development organisations have used the team’s expertise.
‘BIRMINGHAM HAS BECOME THE NATIONAL CENTRE OF EXPERTISE ON TRADE AND INVESTMENT WITH INDIA AND SOUTH ASIA’
All aboard: Burton Chamber networking event
• India Pakistan Trade Unit Birmingham has become the national – possibly the EU’s – centre of expertise on trade and investment with India and South Asia. IPTU is responsible for managing and co-ordinating the West Midlands activity and this includes arranging trade missions, seminars and
Future Faces Future Faces was developed by the Burton & District Chamber of Commerce to help businesses to support and develop staff aged 18 to 35 who are in the early stages of their career. The individual membership package has now been extended Chamber wide and provides members with an opportunity to develop leadership and personal development skills. Events consist of structured training and social networking.
Trade boost: a Latvian delegation during a visit to the West Midlands
conferences. IPTU has also hosted incoming visits and has recently welcomed delegations from Dhaka, Lahore, Karachi, Delhi and Mumbai. The IPTU website www.iptu.co.uk is hugely successful, receiving 1,750,000 hits and 40,000+ visitors a month. • International Trade Clusters Advantage West Midlands, our Regional Development Agency, uses UKTI as their international trade delivery arm. Birmingham leads on two clusters – Screen Image and Sound and Business and Professional Services. Using the International Trade Advisors the International Trade Team ensures that specific international opportunities, market visits, exhibitions, international conferences and symposiums are made available to the cluster across the entire region. • Trade Missions The International Team runs a comprehensive programme and trade missions around the world and recent trips have been made to India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, USA, Germany and Singapore, China, Mexico, the Caribbean, Brazil, Turkey and the Baltics. • International Trade Promotion Centre The International Department has an important and influential presence at the National Exhibition Centre in Solihull, liaising with the major trade shows, the ITPC arrange “meet the buyer” events, assists and signposts international trade enquiries and also promote inward investment into the UK.
International Birmingham Chamber’s international trade team is among the largest and most innovative in the UK. Its enormous range of services is designed to benefit the Chamber membership and the wider business community alike and in many instances the department guides and assists businesses across the UK and the EU. Services include: • UK Trade & Investment The International Trade team delivers UK Trade & Investment support to businesses across Birmingham and Solihull. Four dedicated International Trade Advisors guide and mentor new and established businesses into exploring and engaging international opportunities via the network of commercial and trade officers located in our Embassies and High Commissions abroad. This free and expert service can be contacted on 0121 450 4205. • Enterprise Europe Network The EEN is a regional resource and is the European Commission’s interface with the public and business community in the West Midlands. The authoritative source on all things EU, our EEN is part of a network comprising 500 such offices and 8,000 staff across Europe.
WEST MIDLANDS CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE 12 THE Directory 2011/2012
Global expertise: the Chamber’s international trade team