Six representatives will be sent on the five-day trip on October 13 to build trade links
Coventry City Council is spending almost £17,000 on an 'economic engagement' visit to China, in a bid to win hundreds of millions of pounds of investment for the city.
Six representatives will be sent on the five-day trip on October 13 to build trade links, meet with potential investors and promote Coventry.
The trip will cost £16,974 for five of the representatives, with the cost of a sixth funded by Coventry and Warwickshire Growth Partnership, who are part of the delegation.
The group will visit Shanghai, Jinan, Guangzhou, Nanjing and Beijing, meeting automotive firms Geely, Guangzhou Automotic, Shangai Auto City and EV100.
They will also attend the China International Auto Products Expo and meet manufacturing giant Red Sun Group, investors of CAD CAM Automotive.
Andy Williams, head of economic development, deputy chief executive (place) Martin Yardley, director of city centre and major projects development David Cockroft, investment and international trade manager John Norton, Conservative councillor John Blundell and business development officer Ben Yorke are those who will make the trip.
Coventry University and China Britain Business Council will also send representatives.
Andy Williams said at a meeting of the Cabinet Member for Jobs and Regeneration committee on October 3: "Chinese investment represents a very significant investment into Coventry and Warwickshire in particular the automotive industry.
"We think Geely, if they choose to continue to invest, it will be more in the upper 100 of millions than lower.
"Red Sun's overall investment at the moment stands at £300 million but there's possibility of them further investing in the city beyond the initial £300m."
Cabinet member Cllr Jim O'Boyle said the financial benefits could be "massive".
He added: "With CAD CAM - Red Sun are the organisation behind them. Their plans for development in our city are potentially massive for our region and again that is really important.
"Nanjing is a huge manufacturing city and potential benefits we can gain from that are pretty big. You can understand the potential prize that we are after here."
Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2018 7:53 pm
