Financial Times focuses on Doing Business in Cardiff and Wales

Ashes week in Cardiff sees Cardiff & Co and International Business Wales (IBW) join forces with the Financial Times to sell the benefits of doing business in Cardiff and Wales. 

The project, jointly funded by Cardiff & Co and IBW, will feature a range of activities designed to encourage key businesses leaders to consider Cardiff and Wales as an investment location.

Cardiff & Co, the destination marketing company charged with promoting Cardiff to the world and IBW, the Welsh Assembly Government’s investment arm, have been working on this project since the start of the year and are using the First Ashes Test in Cardiff as the perfect hook to raise Wales’ profile on the national and international stage.

On Tuesday (7th July), the Financial Times will publish a supplement outlining the benefits of doing business in Cardiff and Wales.  At the same time, a gathering of FTSE 350 and Alternative Investment Market companies as well as Embassy representatives from around the world will hear from key business leaders why Cardiff and Wales is the place to be.

The Cardiff delegation includes Henry Engelhardt, Chief Executive of Admiral Group plc, Mike Luscombe, Fund Manager at Aviva, Byron Davies, Chief Executive of Cardiff Council and Bill Savage, Chairman of Cardiff & Co..  Other representatives championing Wales’ cause will be Mike Greenway of EADS, Sir Emyr Jones Parry, Wales Champion and Ian Williams, Director of IBW.

Commenting on the high profile initiative, Bill Savage of Cardiff & Co said,

“We initiated this project earlier this year as we felt that the eyes of the world would be on Cardiff during Ashes week and it was therefore a one-off opportunity to grab people’s attention in a high profile way.  We’re delighted that IBW joined us as equal partners in this endeavour and that the project now not only promotes Cardiff but the rest of Wales as well.”

“The FT supplement will be distributed across the UK and to overseas markets such as the USA, Australia, China and India whilst the reach of the dedicated FT website will be world-wide.”

“We’ve already seen increased numbers of visitors to our investincardiff.com website and expect to see this rise dramatically once the supplement is published.”

“Working with a prestigious and well respected publication like the FT shows the scale of our ambition and despite the recession, we feel the time is right to start talking to people in positive tones about the role that the Cardiff city-region could play in helping their firm turn recession into opportunity.”

To read more on this project, visit www.ftconferences.com/wales/ or www.businesscardiffwales.com

02/07/2009