SEEDA – South East England Development Agency

Business location campaign North-Rhine Westphalia in the Southeast of England 2005/2006

SEEDA (South East of England Development Agency) is one of eight regional trade promotion agencies in England covering one of the strongest economics regions in the whole of Great Britain: from the Eastern region of Kent, via the region south of London to Milton Keynes and Oxford. 

AHP International has been liaising closely with the German federal state of North-Rhine Westphalia (NRW) since 2002 in order to support the state's network strategy targeted at European partner regions. AHP International has served as management consultant to the Department of Economics in Düsseldorf and has worked extensively on the implementation of their network strategy, in particular through an annual economics conference (Business Forum NRW-UK in 2006, 2004 and 2003).

The mutual project goals involved employing NRW's network activities in order to entice NRW companies active in the fields of environmental and energy technology to set up business in the SEEDA region.

Implementation of the project involved traditional public relations activities by placing adverts in relevant journals, proactive network marketing as well as two SEEDA presentations onsite in NRW. The initial introductory presentation with SEEDA CEO James E. Brathwaite was complemented at a later stage by a topic-specific conference "Bio Fuels" in cooperation with the NRW state initiative for Future Energy Technologies.

Additionally, AHP International made extensive use of the bccg British Chamber of Commerce member network in Germany which yielded a number of potential investors interested in the SEEDA region.