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  • HOW TELFORD CAUGHT EYE OF EASTERN TIGERS

    Asian companies of which there are more than 20, provide the lion's share of jobs from overseas employers. Thet began settin up un the new town in the 1980s when Hitachi Maxell of Japan established a video and audio tape plant. The timing was opportune. According to Elwyn Jones, a regional director of English partnerships, the regeneration body: "The town's fortunes had taken a turn for the worst. There had been some big closures and unemployment was at 20 per cent."

    A snowball began rolling. Hitachi Maxell was joined by Epson, Ricoh, Makitaand Nippon Denso. The concentration of japanese manufacturers is now reflected in specialist food shops and Saturday school for the children of expatriate managers. US companies are, however, the most numerous of the town's 160 overseas employers: there are 40 of them, including thr engineers Federal-Mogul and Johnson Controls. There have also been significant investments from Germany and France: two weeks ago, Lyreco, the french office supplier, announced it would spend ?8m on a distrution centre to employ 400. Companies such as Lyreco come to Telford because it is close to the centre of the country's main north-south transport arteries. Other attractions are cheap premises., a young labour force and pretty villages where overseas executives are happy to live.

    Public sector support has included grants for land reclaimation, a rate-free enterprise zone and marketing efforts of a local development agency with an unusually entepereneurial ethos. Jason Tsai, chairman and chief executive of Enta Technologies, the IT distributor with offices in the Pagoda, says: "Local government helped me with everything from finding land to getting a grant of £330,000 from selective regional assistance."

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    • 27 Nov 2000

    • Posted in Entagroup