Fred Popp, who heads the American company that promotes the Kentucky Derby and David Beckham’s US football club, LA Galaxy, was in no doubt about where his fi rm’s next offi ce should be. “London was our fi rst choice out of a number of world cities considered for this new operation,” says Popp, CEO of sports branding specialists, SME. “It offers everything we need – proximity to Europe, an abundance of creative resources, an internationalised business environment and, of course, major sports events such as the 2012 Olympics.” New York-based SME branding is not alone in choosing the UK as a base for expansion. Indeed, 484 US companies opened UK operations in 2009/10, accounting for 30 per cent of all foreign businesses investing directly into the UK and the same proportion of the 53,358 jobs subsequently created. Japan, France and India follow on the record list of 54 countries whose businesses chose the UK. But, while some make their decision independently, almost half use the services of UK Trade & Investment. “The UK has various strengths that

are attractive to investors,” says Andrew Levi, UK Trade & Investment’s director for investment. “It is one of the world’s greatest locations for inward investment.

UK Trade & Investment can offer access to networks and information that the market would not otherwise provide.” While two thirds of his colleagues

at UK Trade & Investment try to help UK companies export to the rest of the world, Levi’s job is to encourage the world to invest in the UK. During a period of global recession that has not been easy, and competition is intense from all countries vying to attract expanding companies. The number of foreign investment projects coming into the UK fell by seven per cent in 2009/2010, but the number benefi tting from UK Trade & Investment’s services jumped by more than 25 per cent.

THE ‘EXTRA’ FACTOR The current economic climate makes foreign direct investment (FDI) even more valuable to the UK. Nigel Driffi eld, professor of international business at Aston University in Birmingham, explains: “Inward investment is good because it’s an exogenous shock on investment – it’s extra investment leading to extra output and jobs without any of the associative crowding out of capital markets.” The importance of overseas investment

in providing the growth that will create jobs and wealth is appreciated by governments

too. Vince Cable, the UK business secretary whose department, alongside the Foreign Offi ce, works with UK Trade & Investment, welcomed last year’s success, saying: “2009/2010 was a diffi cult year for inward investment, which fell by around 10 per cent throughout Europe. Against this background, the UK has proven its enduring strengths. We have attracted investment projects from a record number of countries, creating a record number of jobs. The role played by UK Trade & Investment has never been so important.” UK Trade & Investment will be announcing a new government strategy for delivering growth through international trade and investment to make it even more effective in boosting the country’s post-recession growth. The organisation’s last fi ve-year plan, set in 2006 and thus due for renewal, gave the department a target of helping 525 FDI projects each year, with at least a quarter having a high research and development content and a fi fth meeting the ‘high value’ criterion of, for instance, bringing innovation that leads to job growth. Those targets have been well exceeded. Levi says: “What we’ve actually done

is that for 2009/10, we assisted 446 high value projects, up 159 per cent over two years. And for total projects, we assisted >

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