The newly-appointed Minister for Trade & Investment, Lord Green, attended a Meet the Buyer event at a Birmingham company on Wednesday 2nd March where he joined local aerospace companies showcasing their products to a global audience of buyers.

The Aerospace Opportunities 2011 event at Delcam was organised by UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) in partnership with the Midlands Aerospace Alliance and the Enterprise Europe Network. Buyers from more than 20 companies from across the world, all looking to do business with Midlands companies, included Rolls Royce, Aerotech Peissenberg, Lufthansa Technik and Hispano-Suiza.

Delcam, which supplies manufacturing software and services to a range of industries including aerospace, hosted the event after successfully working with UKTI to build its international business. Lord Green also had an opportunity to meet with senior management and tour Delcam's site. 

Lord Green said: 

"We have an ambition in this country to turn around our export performance so that the British economy is dependent on exports to world markets rather than reliant on demand at home. 

"This will be a marathon and not a sprint. 

"But we have a great deal of talent in a lot of industry sectors in the UK and we are starting from a position of strength."

"The advanced engineering sector, in particular, is a good example of an area where there are thousands of SMEs in the supply chain, which are exporting overseas and winning business in growing markets."

Last year West Midlands companies exported £16.7 billion to countries all over the world.

Whilst in the region, Lord Green also opened a new factory at Wolverhampton fencing firm Zaun. The company has successfully exported to France and the Middle East with the assistance of UKTI and the new 50,000 sq ft factory will double capacity and create 40 new jobs.