Borough’s “pull factors” result in successful foreign investment
Telford and Wrekin’s central location and ready for market land is resulting in successful investment from overseas – making the borough economically resilient.
This reflects national success with new figures from the Department for International Trade showing the past financial year has been the fifth best year ever for Foreign Direct Investment projects coming into the UK.
Telford has successfully attracted 60 per cent of the foreign investment in the Marches Local Enterprise Partnership area.
In real terms, Telford landed six of the 10 single sited projects that came to the Marches LEP area.
These included two from Germany and one each from Canada, Sweden, the United States and Italy.
Councillor David Wright, Telford & Wrekin Council’s cabinet member for Economy, Housing, Transport and Infrastructure, said:
“We have companies coming to Telford from across the world which makes us extremely resilient and is a testament to how we have proactively managed our investment programme.
“It also demonstrates our appeal to international markets and the diversity of industries we have attracted makes us very optimistic for the future.
“Our diverse business landscape will help us maintain that resilience in spite of the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
“We have been able to react very quickly to events and maintain a deal-focussed approach while pushing the many positives that the borough has to offer, including affordable land that is ready to be marketed, excellent transport links and our central location.”
Successes have come from sectors such as:defence, food manufacturing, automotive and digital prototyping.
One of the foreign direct investment successes into Telford and Wrekin is Filtermist International who are part of Swedish Absolent Group.
Filtermist, who manufacture oil mist collectors and filter units, providing clean air workplaces for their clients worldwide, moved to their T54 headquarters in 2015 and subsequently opened a new £4M distribution unit last year just a few minutes’ walk from its purpose built headquarters at T54.
