Ben Houchen, Tees Valley Mayor, will be pushing for further investment into new net-zero clean technologies in the region, bringing more well-paid jobs to Teesside, when he attends the Government’s Global Investment Summit 2021 this week.
The event will unite global business leaders, industry experts, ministers and other representatives to showcase and drive forward innovative green projects across the country.
The one-day event will be hosted on Tuesday October 19, 2021, at London’s Science Museum, hosted by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and HM The Queen.
Other members of the Royal Family will be supporting the event too, with the aim of securing foreign investment in UK green industries of the future.
Newly-released figures showed UK green projects had already benefitted from more than £5.8bn in foreign investment since the launch of the Prime Minister’s Ten Point Plan.
For Mr Houchen, the summit will include a meeting with Yousef Abdullah Al-Benyan, global Chief Executive of petrochemical firm Sabic, who has its UK headquarters in Redcar. At the meeting, Mr Houchen is expected to push for the company to make further investment into the Tees Valley region.
The conference is seen as a good way of showing how the UK can lead the way on green investment, as well as the levelling up agenda, in anticipation of the COP26 climate change conference arriving in Glasgow in early November.
Ben Houchen said: “We’re already leading the way in clean energy and sectors that are becoming cleaner, healthier and safer – not only in the way things are done, but in terms of the well-paid, good-quality jobs that they are creating. That doesn’t mean we should sit back, expecting further investments to come to us, we have to get out there and show these businesses what we have to offer.
“That’s why I’ll be banging the drum for Teesside, Darlington and Hartlepool at events like these, to secure further investment as we throw our doors open to the global community more than ever, setting out our stall on the international stage.
“I’m looking forward to speaking to the global CEO of Sabic, a hugely familiar firm to many in Teesside, to make the case for further investment in our area and strengthen the ties the company already has with our area.
“While this is about boosting the economy, putting ourselves at the heart of innovation and clean energy for the whole of the UK and securing more jobs, it’s also about less pollution.
“As we harness hydrogen, offshore and carbon capture industries, we’re also driving forward an environment that, like these industries, is also cleaner, healthier and safer.”
