’Tis better to give than to receive

The festive season has arrived! Time for lots of lovely British food (stuffing, mince pies and Christmas pudding), carol services, bustling markets and swiftly melting Belgian snow. 

It’s also a time for gifts. So this December I thought I would write about a special kind of gift: not for family or friends but for companies, and, in particular, British ones exporting to Belgium. Or to put it less festively, incorrigible Scrooge that I am, Christmas is coming and I want to write about the bottom line. And for the UK, the bottom line means exports. Building British prosperity is one of my biggest priorities as ambassador. That means encouraging more British companies to export, particularly SMEs, and doing our best to win the global war for investment.

It’s something my team were discussing with Lord Green, the UK minister for trade and investment, who dropped by the embassy this week to help us brainstorm on how we can encourage exporters.

One way we are doing this is by celebrating success.

In this great year for Great Britain, the UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) team at the embassy joined forces with the British Chamber of Commerce in Belgium to give a first ever Golden Bridge Award to those ambitious British companies who cross the channel to sell goods and services to their Belgian neighbours.

Oscars for export? We took the idea from an existing prize that recognises Belgian and Luxembourg exporters to the UK. The prize is now two-way, reflecting the fact that trade is win-win for both the UK and Belgium – and that exporters become investors.

So on a chilly night in November, companies came together to bask in the warmth of their awards at the Belgian-Luxembourg Chamber of Commerce Clubhouse in London.  

But how did they get there?  Companies presented their achievements to a Dragon’s Den-style panel in Brussels including me, UKTI managing director Crispin Simon, president of the British Chamber Glynis Whiting, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Flanders Investment & Trade, Brussels Invest & Export, and Awex, Wallonia’s export agency.

Finalists included clothing company SuperGroup, IT company Netshield, food exporter Ramsden International and the University of Kent. We learned about the challenges facing exporters and how innovative they often have to be in order to crack a market: why does Cherry Coca-Cola sell in Wallonia and not in Flanders? Why is Ambrosia creamed rice so popular in China?

We also learned how difficult it is to generalise about exporters – all the companies were different. Choosing a winner was a tough call. In the end, we chose two. The best new exporter award went to Netshield, a West Midlands-based IT company, and the best existing exporter award went to SuperGroup Plc, which manufactures clothes. Both have begun their international careers by first expanding to Belgium. Netshield came to Belgium because of a UKTI/West Midlands trade mission two years ago. 

The main sponsor for the award was the Port of Ostend – another sign of the close trading links between our countries. Belgium is an excellent starter market for many companies – it’s geographically close, English is widely spoken, there are lots of rich consumers and few barriers to trade.

By celebrating the success of companies exporting to Belgium, we hope to encourage new exporters. 

So next year’s Golden Bridge Awards will be even bigger and better. Lord Green told my team this week about a Walsall cupcake manufacturer who had conquered the world. 

So if there any exporters out there who would like to enter for our Oscars next year, please get in touch. And if there are other companies who want to play Santa by sponsoring – or offer to share their expertise – then postcards to this embassy.

Meanwhile, a final non-Scrooge-like word. Happy Christmas!

Click here to find out more about why Belgium is a great place to do business, and why exports matter to the UK in a YouTube interview with me, UKTI’s managing director and the president of the British Chamber of Commerce