THE agency responsible for attracting new business to Manchester has helped bring more than 3,000 jobs and millions of pounds worth of investment to the region during the last year.
The Manchester Investment and Development Agency Service (MIDAS) also helped safeguard 1,116 jobs.
Its high profile success stories included Centrica, TetraPak and ExxonMobil.
In 2000/01, MIDAS, which covers Manchester, Salford, Tameside and Trafford, advised companies on projects with a total investment value of £186m and created 3,351 jobs
Most of the jobs came in customer contact centres, shared service centres, bio-sciences and information communication technology (ICT).
MIDAS chief executive Neil Fountain said: ‘‘The figures show that the long-term development work MIDAS has been doing in these key areas, especially in the shared service sector, has started to pay off.
‘‘We are seeing that the quality of inquiry is high, tending to be from large national or multi-national companies. MIDAS received almost 600 inquiries in the year just ended, and we hosted 120 company visits.’’
Targetting
He added that given the continued strength of call centres, bio-sciences and ICT, MIDAS aims to continue its policy of targeting other hotspots in these sectors world-wide.
Work on putting strategic city-to-city links in place with centres including Pittsburgh and Montreal for bio-sciences and Melbourne for e-commerce, is set to continue this year.
Mr Fountain said: ‘‘By targeting cities which boast similar sectors, we can set up partnerships promoting two-way initiatives which support inward and outward trade development.’’
Formal links have been established with companies and investment agencies in Quebec and Pennsylvania and MIDAS has signed a protocol of co-operation with the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation.
‘‘An increasing number of inquiries are seeking companies in the Manchester area for mergers, acquisitions or strategic alliances and we are working with the city’s professional community to see how such inquiries can be serviced.’’
Tweet