The Merseyside section includes governance, overview, sectors, top 10 companies, knowledge, property, transport, culture and top 10 attractions.
Leading role on a global stage
Liverpool marked its 800th birthday in 2007 with a panoply of pageantry, parties and pyrotechnics that dispelled concerns about its ability to stage major events as European Capital of Culture in 2008.
The Capital of Culture year, with its glittering programme and multibillion-pound investment bonanza, will undoubtedly raise Liverpool’s profile nationally and internationally. Yet the city has enjoyed a prominent position on the global map for well over two centuries. Even in the digital era, the city is probably better known in the US than Manchester – Samuel L Jackson’s movie The 51st State was Pulp Fiction with a Scouse accent. And where Americans tend to say “Manchester, England” – and even “London, England” – Liverpool is simply “Liverpool”.
Of course, there is a darker side to the city’s transatlantic links: an estimated 10 million West Africans were sold into slavery, the majority taken to America in Liverpool-owned ships in horrific conditions.
Fitting, then, that Liverpool marked another anniversary – the 200th anniversary of Britain’s abolition of the slave trade – with the opening of the International Slavery Museum, the first national museum in the world to deal with transatlantic slavery and its legacies.
Commenting on the opening of the museum, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said museums and galleries play a critical role, not just in reflecting the past but also in shaping our future – and Merseyside can look forward to some promising prospects.
Much of Liverpool’s new-found confidence hinges on the rediscovery of the entrepreneurial relish that made the city great in the 18th and 19th centuries.
At the centre of Liverpool’s fast-expanding business community is the life sciences or biotech sector, widely touted as the next big thing after the IT revolution. For Liverpool’s academic and business communities, life sciences represent a critically important opportunity.
More than 100 companies contribute over £1bn to Merseyside’s economy, including global brands such as Novartis, Lilly and MedImmune.
A further 2,000 employees are working in biomedical and clinical research in universities, hospitals and research institutes. The Liverpool city region is also home to the world-leading Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and the National Biomanufacturing Centre, which manufactures biopharmaceutical medicines for clinical trials and supports new and existing biotechnology companies.
Exploiting a host of commercial opportunities is MerseyBIO, a life sciences sector support organisation for Merseyside that aims to sustain growth by helping start-up companies, commercialising life science technology and nurturing a development-friendly infrastructure.
The effectiveness of this strategy is vividly illustrated by MerseyBio company Iota NanoSolutions, which won the 2007 Merseyside Innovation Awards.
Iota has a purpose-built laboratory and offices in the MerseyBio incubator, with a core team of scientists. The company’s nanodispersion innovation originates from the Liverpool University chemistry department and has a wide range of potential applications.
The business has developed novel technologies that allow the formulation of poorly soluble materials into more liquid forms that can be used to make products from pharmaceuticals and consumer/household goods to agrochemicals and inks.
Grounds for optimism were further strengthened by the announcement of a £4.6m funding package by the Northwest Regional Development Agency for infrastructure to support the development of an international business park at the former MTL bus depot and Marconi sites on Edge Lane in Liverpool.
Ultimately the vision for the area is to attract investment and jobs from companies in the science, technology, digital, creative and IT sectors. The project, which started early in 2007 and is set to finish in April 2008, is expected to generate 1,000 jobs for the area.
ICT is a strong growth sector on Merseyside with more than 700 companies employing around 6,000 people and contributing £2bn to the sub-region’s economy. The universities, science parks, funding and business support attract ICT companies into Merseyside and aid their growth. Embedding IT into other sectors is a key strategic move in strengthening the ICT sector as whole.
Creative industries on Merseyside is a justifiably confident sector, awash with resourceful individuals and enterprising businesses building on international recognition for innovation. Almost 2,000 businesses operate in the sector, employing 16,000 people and turning over a total of some £500m.
Liverpool is uniquely positioned to turn its historic trading links to futuristic opportunities, with thriving businesses on both banks of the Mersey trading, inspecting and analysing cotton in the global market place.
The Wirral is home to Plexus Cotton, a worldwide business founded in 1990. Employing 40 people in Birkenhead and turning over £228.3m in 2006, Plexus began life buying and selling cotton all over the world. The company soon found that it would make more sense to grow its own cotton and set up operations in Africa in 1992.
This involves an aid scheme that provides African farmers with seeds, fertilisers and pesticides. They are shown how to grow the crop before it is bought back from them by Plexus, which then processes and sells the lint.
Nor is Plexus alone in its adventures in the cotton trade. Other Merseyside companies forging new markets in the sector include: Birkenhead international cotton merchant Weil Brothers & Stern; Wakefield Inspection, a world leader in the cotton controlling industry; trader Central Cotton; and Cargill Cotton on Princes Parade, whose selling, processing and warehousing operations span the globe.
With a maritime history dating back almost 300 years, Merseyside is home to a thriving maritime sector that brings more than £2.5bn to the local economy annually. The sector contains more than 1,000 limited companies and provides more than 26,000 jobs in areas ranging from ship repair, cargo handling and port operations to freight forwarding, warehousing and professional services.
The Port of Liverpool handles around 34m tonnes each year. It is the largest freeport zone in the UK and the top UK port for UK-USA and UK-Canada container trade. Plans for the first Post-Panamax container terminal on the UK’s west coast have also been approved by the government.
The Liverpool city region also has a strong tradition as an international automotive industry centre, with the presence of some of the world’s leading car manufacturers and prestige marques.
Halewood Operations has been recognised as the best Ford plant in Europe by the official industry benchmark, the JD Power and Associates initial quality study, and is promoted by Ford as a Centre of Excellence. Production of the new Freelander 2 is underway here, alongside the award-winning Jaguar X-type. Following investment of £300m, Ford’s Jaguar plant employs more than 3,000 staff. However, the future of both Jaguar and Land Rover is unclear after Ford put both brands up for sale.
Financial services is the fastest growing sector in the Liverpool city region, worth £1.8bn to the economy, and includes blue-chip firms such as JP Morgan Invest, Rathbones, Coutts and Royal Liver Assurance. More than £50bn of assets are managed by people in Liverpool, second in UK only to London.
The city region is also home to the full range of accountancy and legal services, insurance, architects and surveyors, as well as advertising and marketing. It is an established centre of government activity, hosting the greatest concentration of civil service staff in the UK outside of London and the South East.
Leisure and tourism are worth £1.1bn to Merseyside’s economy, a figure that is predicted to rise to £2bn by 2013, supporting 30,000 jobs. Some 10 million staying visitors visit Liverpool each year.
The findings of the International Passenger Survey (IPS) also show that Liverpool has retained sixth position in an official list of UK destinations ranked by popularity, making the city a more popular visitor destination than Oxford, Cambridge, Leeds, York, Bristol and Bath.
Creative industries on Merseyside is another prosperous sector – vibrant and confident, brimming with resourceful people, businesses and ideas. More than 3,500 businesses operate in the sector, employing 18,500 people. Thirteen sub-sectors range from architecture to TV and include brand leaders like Sony CEE and Lime Pictures, as well as a range of specialist small businesses.
Around 250 companies operate in Merseyside’s food and drink trade, providing jobs for 10,000 people and generating more than £2.5bn turnover. The city region is home to some of the world’s best-known household brands, including Dairy Crest, Jacobs Biscuits and Princes Food Group. Key strengths are bakery, cereals, meats, snacks and drinks, while Liverpool John Moores University is a centre of academic strength in food and nutrition.
Liverpool has seen a surge of investment in the high-tech, high-skilled service centres, inbound and outbound, and is an increasingly attractive location for UK location for business services operations.
The city is the number one contact centre location in the UK, according to research by recruitment firm Adecco and the Overseas Market Introduction Service (OMIS), while Wirral is home to the Contact Centre Forum (CCF), which supports all aspects of the industry on Merseyside.