MIPIM | ‘We’ve smashed it’ says Liverpool City Region mayor
17 March 2023 07:51Ju
Steve Rotheram came to the international property event to promote investment opportunities in the city region. The Liverpool City Region mayor has been well pleased with the results so far.
Last year, MIPIM felt like a Liverpool City Region damage control tour. The message was that things had been bad in the region’s main city, but it was getting better. This year, there’s a pep in LCR’s step and developers are taking note.
Rotheram was positively buzzing on Thursday afternoon. Fresh off a series of conversations with interested developers and investors in Cannes, Rotheram beamed when asked how MIPIM was going so far for the region.
“We’ve smashed it,” he said.
Before, Liverpool had to constantly shout about what it was up to, he said. Now, rather than having to approach people to tell them about the city region, it is Rotheram who is being approached. The message is out there, and the audience is receptive.
That includes minister for investment Lord Dominic Johnson, according to Rotheram.
“We just had the investment minister at our dinner last night who said ‘I specifically believe that the Liverpool City Region is the area for people to start looking at to invest’,” Rotheram recalled.
He grinned. “Not bad, is it!”
The quest for FDI
Time will tell if the good vibes of MIPIM translate to a real uptick in foreign direct investment – one of Rotheram’s main goals in attending the Cannes conference.
Before MIPIM, Rotheram acknowledged that the region’s FDI numbers were “not good”. Liverpool City Region had only 18 new projects from FDI last year according to the Department for International Trade. Greater Manchester, by comparison, had 65. London had 455.
“We want to grow the economy,” Rotheram told Place North West. “That means that we need foreign direct investments and some government support.”