Senior Government ministers praise ‘un-ignorable force that resulted in them holding major investment event in Birmingham
Senior Government ministers have praised the ‘un-ignorable force that resulted in them holding a major investment event in Birmingham.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves, Trade Secretary Peter Kyle and West Midlands Mayor Richard Parker co-hosted the first Regional Investment Summit in Edgbaston on Tuesday, October 21.
And both Mrs Reeves and Mr Kyle credited the Mayor’s championing of the region and his partnership work with the Government as being one of the reasons Birmingham was chosen to host the prestigious event.
The Summit saw a host of major investment projects unveiled which are said to have provided a £800 million boost to the West Midlands economy, creating hundreds of new jobs.
These included Hines and Woodbourne Group announcing a £400 million investment to support the £4 billion Birmingham Knowledge Quarter, part of the West Midlands Investment Zone and Blackstone is pumping £200 million into the NEC.
Birmingham City FC owner Tom Wagner also revealed revealed their new stadium will be created by British designers Heatherwick Studio and Kansas based architects MANICA, with support from Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight.
In a pre-Summit event attended by around 300 national and regional leaders, the Chancellor said: “There’s no greater champion of this part of the world than Richard.
“Some of the reason we’re here, is since we had the International Investment Summit in London last year, Richard’s been saying ‘you want to get out of London, you should come to Birmingham and we’d put on an amazing event for you.
“I’m really excited by the calibre of businesses, the number of people and the announcements we’ve got.”
Mr Kyle added: “Richard is an un-ignorable force. He has proven himself to be an amazing partner to Government.
“When we were campaigning to win the trust of voters in the election last year, we said where you have Labour authorities locally partnering with Labour centrally will be a partnership which adds up to more than the sum of its parts.
“And I think the way Richard has run the authority here, the way he has invested assiduously here and the way he has sought out partnerships with central government to leverage investment, it has worked incredibly well.”
