The Prime Minister of Latvia said he picked up tips on combining academia with manufacturing on a visit to the West Midlands.

Valdis Dombrovskis visited the region to promote Latvia as a place to invest, as part of plans to bounce back from the economic gloom by focusing on industry.

He met business leaders at University of Warwick’s International Digital Lab, and told the Birmingham Post he was impressed with the ties between universities and firms in the region.

Mr Dombrovskis added: "That is something we also need to look at in Latvia and promote as we have companies who also experience the problem of slow translation of academic research into practical business.”

Mr Dombrovskis, who is the youngest prime minister in Europe at the age of 39, said he selected the West Midlands to visit because of its strong manufacturing roots.

He is keen to promote trade with Latvia – one of Northern Europe’s fastest-growing countries – and sees growth sectors like advanced manufacturing, medical devices and a ICT as key to his country’s success.

Speaking of the sectors he was interested in growing, he said: “Not so much the automotive industry, more like machinery and metal-processing in the wide sense of the word.

“We have some businesses associated with Bentley and Rolls-Royce in Latvia but its really more machinery, not so much the automotive industry.”

He added: “Certainly the plan is to intensify trade with the UK and investment from the UK. The UK is our number eight trading partner in exports.

‘‘We want to attract interest in metal processing, machinery, chemicals and ICT and in the West Midlands there is a strong industrial base in all of these industries,” he said.

“Not only are we returning back to economic growth – we expect 3.3 per cent – but we have changed the structure of our economy much more into industrial production.

“For example, in 10 months last year we had invested in production growth of 13 per cent and export growth of 29 per cent.”