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Hoist Your Company's Chances of Survival

Proof the North East can sell a myriad of services and goods abroad besides the usual vehicles, machine tools and maritime insurance - is seen in dance.

Yes, dance is now poised to break into Japan and Brazil. The Surface Area Dance Theatre of Newcastle and Houghton le Spring drew support from UK Trade and Investment’s Passport programme only 18 months after managing director Nicole Vivien Watson started it. She, perhaps not surprisingly, has been named Entrepreneur of the Year by the region’s Women into the Network organisation.

Meanwhile the more common services and manufactures continue to be

shipped out – with pharmaceutical and medicinal products in particular showing a big jump rise as they help to make the North East the UK’s only region where exports are higher than imports.

 

Until now, this feat has been achieved largely by a handful of industries: notably automotives, process chemicals and offshore, medicinal and pharma products, petroleum and associates, organic chemicals and machinery – adding up to about 4% of all the region’s companies. That could change for the (even) better. More than 1,000 businesses in the region are now being offered an opportunity to export for the first time, thanks to a £12m package of support - European and public sector money - that will also enable industry experts to get behind small firms and inject the necessary knowledge and expertise.

 

More than 800 small businesses in all are being offered the support as a sliding pound brightens export prospects. The Federation of Small Businesses, the North East Chamber of Commerce and Business and Enterprise North East all welcome the initiative, to be spread over three years. And UKTI is running export classes for any firm thinking to take the plunge.

 

Another way small and medium size firms and their managers can hit the export trail comes with the chance from next May for the managers to train as experts on China, boosting their careers as well as the business of their firms.

 

In a 10 month programme of manager exchanges between China and EU countries, bosses from the North East have a chance – with a monthly stipend - to learn business Chinese intensively and win experience through work placements at the heart of Chinese business.

 

Stefan Hall, the programme’s team leader says: “Unlike managers from large corporations, SME executives seldom have in-house opportunities to train as overseas experts in this way.” Anyone interested has to hurry though. Applications close on January 7.

 

If all the opportunities on offer now are taken up, the region could soon better its present performance of accounting for 4% of the UK’s exports, despite contributing only 3% of the nation’s GDP. Put another way, it could with its mere 3% of UK companies take on further its exports of 6% in total value of UK overseas trade.

 

The incentives come just at the right time. North East exports were growing by 17% a year before the recession, but recently slid 10% – largely due to falling exports of cars and organic chemicals as world markets froze. Fortunately, pharma and medicinal products rose, as did petroleum and related products.

 

Exporting calls for extra effort but can pay. A recent survey indicated that 42% of exporters had raised turnover over 12 months, compared with only 23% of companies over all. More to the point; the sample also suggested that exporters are 11.4% more likely to survive long term.

 

So sell abroad and stay alive!

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