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Tools of the trade: From left, Olympia Tools MD John Bramwell with MP Alok Sharma, UK Trade and Investment regional director Lewis Scott and Olympias purchasing and marketing director Vahe Der Kureghian. 135483
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the number of businesses that sell overseas by 100,000 by 2020. This has the potential to add 30bn to the UK economy and create approximately 100,000 more UK jobs. Alongside all of this, I am tasked with setting the plans and priorities for my team these are not just based on
ness perspective, exporting reduces reliance on the domestic market,spreading the risk of peaks and troughs in demand and overall improves the health and fitness of the company, which in turn leads to a more sustainable and productive business community. We also know that exporting businesses are more research and development intensive and innovative than domestic-only enterprises. From a national UK per-
Meeting SME owners is the most enjoyable and interesting part of my job
An appetite to grow
Cotswold Fayre, in Tessa Road, is a fine food wholesaler providing independent retailers with high quality food and drink products. It also works with Bala Orphanage, in Kenya, sponsoring 40 children whose education, food and accommodation are paid for by the business, which is celebrating 20,000 raised at its latest charity event. With growing interest in British food throughout the world, in 2012, two of the companys top 10 customers were export customers. Cotswold Fayre has been working with International Trade Adviser (ITA) Peter Warren since 2008, completing UKTIs Passport To Export scheme a 12-month programme for new or lessexperienced exporters and has graduated onto Gateway To Global Growth. It has also used UKTIs Overseas Market Introductory deployed additional resources and support in High Growth Markets. In particular, resources to the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China), which will help respond to this dynamic change in target markets for UK goods and services. But we have not stopped there. A second grouping of countries known as the CIVETS (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa) are having their UKTI resource enhanced. But we are also flexible. For example in the last year we have established a UKTI commercial team in Rangoon as a result of the encouraging signs of economic change in Burma/Myanmar. It is also hitching our wagons to the fast growing emerging economies in Asia and Latin America, which will feed growth into our economy. This will be a key focus for us over the next five years, not least as we are seeking to exploit our unrivalled exper-
Service (OMIS) and Market Visit Support (MVS). Founder and MD Paul Hargreaves says: Advice from the ITA, funding for trade missions and the general help given by UKTI have been enormously helpful in growing our export business, which we expect to double this year, albeit from a small base.Cotswold Fayre is currently growing at over 30% per annum and we expect export to be an increasingly significant factor in this impressive growth over the next few years.
tise and reputation in major sporting events. This follows London 2012 and supports UK companies in winning business for the Brazil Soccer World Cup in 2014 and the Rio Olympics in 2016. In addition, UKTI ran a national initiative in May called Export Week: High Growth Markets. It was attended by more than 100 companies in the South East. Another Export Week is running in November, visit www. exportweek.ukti.gov.uk for
There is funding available to SMEs to support your export growth planning and activities