Leading clusters in life sciences and ICT bring international investors and VC funds to the region.

	Area:	19,119 sq km
	Population:	3.7%
	Regional GDP³	£81.8bn
	Exports to EU³	£10.1bn
	Exports outside EU³	£8.4bn
	Unemployment‡	7.4%
	Industrial property cost*	103.2
	Office rental cost**	88.1
	% of exports to Asia/Oceania³	10.0%
	Foreign manufacturing investment²	£566m
	UK manufacturing investment²	£1035m
	R&D expenditure³	£2559m
	Gross Value Added per employee¹	£37,500
	Export value per employee³	£8676
	Average earnings per hour³ (male)	£10.90
	Average earnings per hour³ (female)	£8.90
	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)

Situated immediately north of London, the East of England is already home to more than 1500 foreign-owned facilities, and is currently attracting record levels of new investment.

Innovation and technology are key strengths. The region boasts the most significant clusters of life sciences, ICT and electronics companies and research centres in Europe. From bioinformatics to pharmacogenomics, from microchips to nanotechnologies, the East of England has the skills, knowledge and business environment to push forward research and promote growth. What other region in the world could lay claim to 20% of all Nobel prizes for chemistry and medicine?

This track record can be attributed to the region’s strong manufacturing base together with highly-developed R&D capabilities. Cambridge is internationally renowned for its university and science/research parks. Ipswich is home to the highest concentration of telecoms R&D engineers in Europe, largely through BT’s research labs, while Norwich is becoming a multimedia cluster, led by the presence of Adobe. Watford, meanwhile, has particular strengths in financial software.

The growth of technology start-ups in the East of England has attracted a strong venture capital base, particularly in Cambridge, which combines its reputation for educational excellence with world-class business incubators and science parks, research strengths and specialist business services. The region is now attracting top graduates from around the world, to add to the 7000 skilled IT personnel that graduate each year from the region’s own educational institutions. The East of England now boasts a pool of some 90,000 top-quality technologists, and is home to more than 4000 ICT companies. The region’s research and development spending is the highest per capita in the UK, and it has the highest number of research engineers per head. The close proximity to London offers further access to skilled labour, as well as to the capital’s business services and market opportunities.

Life sciences
The region is home to a unique network of academia and corporate centres of excellence in life sciences, including the John Innes Centre (Norwich), the Wellcome Trust (Cambridge) and the Babraham Institute (Cambridge). The sector has long since reached critical mass in terms of cluster benefits – there are more than 150 biotechnology firms and centres within 60km of Cambridge. The city’s Sanger Centre led the Human Genome project.

Infrastructure
Part of the region’s attraction for investors is the ease of access to London, the rest of the UK and continental Europe. The East of England’s comprehensive transport network includes the UK’s largest deepwater container port at Felixstowe, and Tilbury, the main port serving London. There are four international airports based in the East of England: London Stansted, London Luton, Norwich and Cambridge International airports. London Heathrow, London Gatwick, London City and Birmingham airports are within 90 minutes to two hours drive.

Other opportunities
Other areas of growth and strength include electronics, business and financial services, automotive components, engineering and offshore industry (including Amoco, Shell and British Petroleum). There are opportunities for Australian complementarities in food production and processing, including food science, research, crop production, processing and leading edge distribution.

Websites:
Invest East of England www.investeastofengland.com
EEDA www.eeda.org.uk