Changed climate but Birmingham open for MIPIM business - Mike Whitby
Mar 2 2009 by Alun Thorne, Birmingham Post
Birmingham is to tackle the world’s largest global property conference with a “beer and sandwiches” approach this year, council leader Mike Whitby has stressed.
He said that the city and its private sector partners would once again be “banging the drum for Brum” at MIPIM in Cannes in March but on a vastly reduced budget and with an “all hands to the pump” mentality.
Out goes the “balti on the beach” dinner of previous years and a planned reception round the Cannes bandstand has also been cut from the plan. Instead the city will be holding a small-scale dinner for key investors, private sector sponsors involved in the city’s regeneration and business “targets” that Birmingham wants to court.
And the city’s leader has conceded that he and his team are in a “no win” situation as far as some critics are concerned.
“We will be damned if we do go to MIPIM and damned if we don’t,” he said. “The problem is that we are not going to Cannes to try to attract new investment into the city in 2009, our target as at every MIPIM is the investor and the global funding institution who is looking five and ten years ahead.
“Yes, we are in the worst recession that most of us have ever seen but, no, it won’t last for ever and when purse strings and the global credit lines are eventually loosened we have to be ready to move fast and pull in investors we have already met and brief on opportunities in Birmingham.”
He pointed out that most of the major developments described in Birmingham’s triumphal “£17 billion of development in the pipeline” announcement at last year’s MIPIM were either under way or had secure long-term funding committed.
“£6 billion worth of public and private sector development has got to happen in the city centre alone over the next five years,” he said.
“Look around the Birmingham skyline, yes, some cranes are standing still and some projects are stalled, but overall the picture is of a city that is continuing to move forward, albeit some days it feels like we are wearing deep sea diver’s boots.”
With the competition to attract overseas investors fiercer than ever due to the prevailing economic climate, MIPIM 2009 is being seen by many industry experts as more important than ever in securing major investments and continuing relationships between the world’s leading cities and developers.
Cllr Whitby said: “Even at times of economic slowdown MIPIM remains an important ‘shop window’ which is visited by all the world’s leading investors and developers as they make their long-term plans for the future.
“Despite the prevailing mood globally I believe we still have a strong message to sell at MIPIM, based upon the long-term vision of the Big City Plan and unprecedented levels of public investment online in the city, which by their very nature are more resilient to recession than privately-funded schemes. Overall we will be re-confirming to the investment world that even in the changed climate Birmingham remains resolutely open for business and that the evident success of the city as a magnet for development will continue.”
Joining the City Council on Team Birmingham will be a number of leading local and national sponsors, all keen to be part of the city’s marketing efforts, including Argent, Birmingham Development Company, Keepmoat, Targetfollow, St Modwen, Rider Levett Bucknall, Beorma, Amey, Hammerson and Rider Levett Bucknall.
Staged in Cannes every year, MIPIM is widely regarded as the world’s premier international trade event for anyone involved in the global property, development and investment markets, and attracted more than 29,000 visitors last year.
