Feature: Liverpool eyes China as Britain's export week launches drive to boost business

The biggest ever drive to sell Liverpool to China was launched Monday, the first day of a week-long national export event across Britain.

The government's official exporting agency, UK Trade & Investment (UKTI), is staging its sixth export week with hundreds of events in every region. Every event aims to encourage or help thousands of British-based businesses to either start their export journey or increase their international business.

In Liverpool, home to Europe's oldest Chinatown, civic and business leaders have joined forces to form the biggest ever partnership designed to build new business links with China and encourage inward investment into the city.

The "It's Liverpool in China Partnership" includes organizations such as the China-Britain Business Council, UKTI, Liverpool Chamber of Commerce and the main official economic agency Liverpool City Region Local Enterprise Partnership.

Also on board for the venture is Peel, the company that owns the Port of Liverpool which includes one of Europe's biggest development sites, Liverpool Waters. Peel already has permission to carry out an 8-billion-U.S.-dollar project on its extensive World Heritage Site of vacant docklands, with Chinese inward investment one of its main targets.

The group is led by civic-run Liverpool Vision, which has been working closely with China since leading the city region's efforts at the Shanghai Expo in 2010.

Also participating in the venture are the city's three universities, the University of Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores and Liverpool Hope, each of which is already home to thousands of Chinese students.

Planned activities will include trade missions to China, boosting tourism to Liverpool from China and securing Chinese delegations and events to next year's main business event in Britain taking place in Liverpool, the International Festival for Business 2016. The partnership also plan to work with authorities in Shanghai, a sister city of Liverpool since 1999, hosting an 'invest in Liverpool' event in Shanghai later this year.

Max Steienberg, chairman of the new partnership said Monday: "There are a lot of organizations here who have a clear focus on China. You only need to look at the number of Chinese students who choose Liverpool, the high volume of consumer tourists and the work done by companies such as Peel."

"However until now, there was nothing which channeled these efforts across education, property and tourism into one cohesive offer to be presented to China and state the city's case," he added. Endit