London tops the polls as Europe’s business capital for finance, e-business, research, and more besides.

	Area:	1580 sq km
	Population:	7.3m
	Regional GDP³	£122.8bn
	Exports to EU³	£10.2bn
	Exports outside EU³	£13.5bn
	Unemployment‡	6.1%
	Industrial property cost*	170.4
	Office rental cost**	211.2
	% of exports to Asia/Oceania³	15.7%
	Foreign manufacturing investment²	£450m
	UK manufacturing investment²	£849m
	R&D expenditure³	£735m
	Gross Value Added per employee¹	£45,000
	Export value per employee³	£6015
	Average earnings per hour³	£13.60
	³=2000; ‡=Q1,2001; ²=1997; *index: UK=100 (type 3 industrial property Q1 2001); ¹=manufacturing; ** index: UK=100 (type 1 office accommodation Q1 2001)

London’s economy accounts for more than 15% of the UK’s GDP, making it larger than the economies of Ireland, Norway, Poland, Finland, Portugal or Greece. It is the centre of business in the UK, frequently selected as the world’s top city in international business surveys. It boasts one of the largest critical masses of educational and academic facilities and knowledge anywhere in the world.

Inward investment
With world strengths in shipping and in particular shipbroking, software, marketing, media and creative services, London attracts more inward investment than any other city in Europe. A quarter of the world’s largest companies have a London HQ, and two-thirds of Fortune’s Global 500 companies have offices in the city. A number of Japanese companies are setting up in London as part of plans to enter the European market to compensate for the home recession.

Costs are above the UK average, but still compare favourably with other global business centres such as Tokyo or Geneva, while the city’s infrastructure and facilities give it a unique position within the UK and the world.

London First Centre is the inward investment agency for the capital, a private and public sector partnership supported by London business through London First, Invest UK, and the Corporation of London. London First is also running a new business task-force to tackle regeneration, opening up new markets and generating opportunity so that “the wealth created in a local area benefits the people who need it most.”

Financial sector
The city’s financial sector, of course, is unrivalled. It has more foreign banks than any other city in the world. It accounts for a third of global foreign exchange trading (more than New York and Tokyo combined) and hosts 65% of international trade in equities. Even the pre-eminence of Germany in the EU’s central banking system has not detracted from London’s critical mass of financial services, which employ more than 300,000 people.

Research
A world centre of excellence for research and development, London’s universities generate about 25% of UK research revenues. Five of the top 10 UK research universities are in London: Imperial College, University College, the London School of Economics, King’s College and the School of African and Oriental Studies. Journal publications outnumber the combined totals from Paris and Frankfurt; London has more libraries than Paris and Berlin combined, with the British Library holding Europe’s biggest collection of printed material.

Industry leader
Whatever sector you examine, London scores highly. It is the UK’s e-business capital, and was voted Europe’s best city for e-business by a significant margin in Healey & Baker’s first European e-locations Monitor. London has the largest network of telecommunications services companies in Europe and a strong base of telecommunications and computer equipment companies. In the education sector, some 300,000 students attend London’s 28 universities and 12 colleges of higher education. The city is the leading health care, medical education and research city in Europe, arguably the world. Tourism brings in 13m visitors from overseas and 11m from the UK.

As a place to live and work, London is a vibrant city. “A man who is bored with London is bored with life,” said Samuel Johnson (although admittedly before the days of commuter gridlock). If you want to do business in the thick of the action, London is your location.

Websites:
London First Centre www.lfc.co.uk
London First www.londonfirst.co.uk