The Duke of York’s speech at the UK-Japan Aerospace Forum Opening Ceremony, 31 May 2007
Your Excellency Mr Amari, Ladies and Gentlemen.
I am delighted to be able join you today as the United Kingdom’s Special Representative for International Trade and Investment and to address this Forum on the Aerospace industry, the linkages between Japan and the United Kingdom and how we can work together to improve our competitiveness, co-operation and collaboration in this very important industrial sector to both our countries.
The first thing to be said is a huge thank you for attending in such numbers and by demonstrating by your presence here today the importance of this area of business to both our countries. I will admit when I first saw the guest list for this conference some weeks ago in London, I was struck then by the gathering of UK and Japanese captains of industry, I consider it a huge privilege to be invited to address you this morning.
In my role as the UK Special Representative for International Trade and Investment, I help businesses of all nationalities in the United Kingdom to develop and to encourage them into trading internationally from a United Kingdom into the global marketplace. But equally I encourage overseas businesses to come to the United Kingdom as an investor or wishing to locate in the UK and from which to undertake a more international line of business particularly within the European market. In the United Kingdom I make regular visits around the business community and in doing so learn a great deal about the industrial potential for business to grow not only internationally but also within the UK and Europe. As you can imagine Aerospace features regularly in my programme and my background and experience in the Fleet Air Arm as a pilot enables me to be closer to your business sector than some others. I am delighted to say that I have visited many of the companies represented by the UK delegation at this forum!
My role also requires that I visit important overseas markets. This is my third visit to Japan in my capacity as Special Representative, my last being in 2005 for the Aichi Exhibition. The UK and Japan have strong economic and collaborative links and I hope that this Forum is another link in that fabric of contacts between our nations and businesses.
The United Kingdom and Japan are both modern, vibrant economies with a highly developed industrial base and with a justified reputation for scientific excellence and innovation. In the field of aerospace we can both point to a long industrial history and a successful heritage of development. Today both the UK and Japan have world class aerospace capabilities and both make a significant contribution to the success of our overall economies.
For the UK the aerospace sector is of fundamental importance. About 3,000 companies directly employ some 125,000 people and they indirectly support a further 300,000 jobs across the economy. And in 2005 the industry generated a turnover £22.67 billion – which is a 25% increase on 2004. And, like Japan, the United Kingdom industry also invests heavily in Research & Development – some £3 billion in 2005.
This combines to make the UK the second largest aerospace industry in the world. But I and you would be wrong to think of it as being in any way insular. It is far from it – in fact in its outlook it reflects the UK’s position in a globalised economy and the growing globalisation of the aerospace industry overall.
UK aerospace companies employ well over 43,000 people overseas. With world class capability in aero-engines, structural airframe design and manufacture, defence systems and unequalled expertise in subsystems and avionics, UK products are sold around the world – 63% of the annual turnover is either built overseas or exported overseas.
The UK also has a highly respected space industry underpinned by UK expertise in satellite navigation and communications, earth observation and imaging, software and space science.
UK space organisations play an important role in international space exploration and in improving our understanding of the Universe. One of the very first ventures into space, Ariel-1 was then the world’s first internationally conceived and executed satellites built by NASA had six British Instruments on board. UK companies continue this innovation and enterprise particularly with the work at Surrey Satellites a successful university spin off and other universities have contributed to recent missions to the Moon, Venus, Mars and Saturn.
We work closely with Japan and other nations as well. UK universities and companies have been closely involved in a number of recent Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launch programmes eg ASTRO-F, was launched in 2006.
The size, geographic ease and strength of UK aerospace also makes the UK an attractive base for companies looking to expand their global presence and reach wider markets. Many global aerospace companies have established operations or facilities in the United Kingdom. Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, Embraer, GE, Raytheon and of course I can’t leave out Rolls Royce or BAe Systems but you know their already from the UK but if I don’t mention them here they’ll feel a little left out! But I am also pleased to know that Japanese aerospace companies such as Sumitomo Precision Products and Minebea have UK operations as well.
It is increasingly impossible to think of the aerospace industry along national lines. Aircraft are produced for the global rather than the local market and the complexity and costs of developing major platforms make it sensible to utilise the strengths and capabilities of world leading aerospace companies on a global scale.
In this context there is again a good story to tell on the co-operation between the United Kingdom and Japan. Many of the UK and Japanese companies represented here today already have major partnerships.
I am sure that we will hear from Sir John in a minute about the strengths and the importance of Rolls Royce’s aerospace links with Japan. So I won’t mention that these date back nearly 50 years to the selection of the Dart engine for the YS11 aircraft. Perhaps I should also pass over Rolls Royce’s collaborations with Japanese risk and revenue sharing partners on the Trent family of engines and of course I should resist the temptation to talk about the selection of RR engines by ANA as launch customer for the forthcoming 787.
You will of course understand that we are extremely proud of the tremendous success Rolls Royce has achieved in partnership with Japanese industry!
As indeed we are proud of the partnerships that other UK companies have established and will establish either directly as a result of the work from this Forum but we are especially proud of those that are represented here today. I will mention a couple of other examples – Augusta Westland and their license agreement with KHI to build EH101 in Japan and Airbus’s 21 Japanese partners involved in the A380 project.
It is also worth mentioning here that most if not all Air business projects are 50% British if you include Rolls Royce engines.
A great deal of the background work to the increasing collaborations, co-operative and joint ventures is conducted by the UK and Japanese Aerospace industry Associations the SBAC and SJAC; it would be wrong of me not to mention the strengthening relations between these two industry associations. I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for the work they have done to bring together our companies and our industries.
Today’s UK/Japan Aerospace Forum will provide an important opportunity to take stock of and to re-invigorate the relations between our two industries.
But perhaps more importantly it will provide a chance to look forward – to the future of relations between our industries, companies and organisations and how they might develop and grow. It will also be an opportunity to discuss some of the challenges that face the global aerospace industry today and those that will face us tomorrow. And let us be clear, whether you sit in Tokyo, London, Nagoya or Derby – or for that matter Seattle or Cincinnati – the fundamental questions really are the same.
I am sure that in the course of today’s forum, in the speeches, the breakout sessions and in coffee breaks and corridors the same key issues will be cropping up again and again.
– The challenges of how to remain competitive in a dynamic and globally successful sector.
– How best to bridge the skills gap.
– And how to balance increasing demand for air – and perhaps in the future space – travel with the environmental pressures of climate change and they are just 3 that come to mind.
I do not think anybody expects this forum to necessarily come up with all the answers – other than I expect finding the way towards one or two would be nice!
I do hope that you will be able to reach a common commitment to work more closely together. Because given the companies and organisations gathered at this forum, I have no doubt that by pooling the joint expertise and talent it will be possible to come up with solutions to the challenges we face on a global scale.
After all, it is not just aerospace we are talking about. The Aerospace industry has a footprint much bigger than its own boundaries. It impacts on almost every facet of modern life and it touches nearly everybody in the world. It is an essential component of the modern global economy and a key driver for technological advances that feed into other industries and into our everyday lives.
I hope therefore that you find today’s forum stimulating and that you are able to renew old business friendships and establish successful new ones…. I very much look forward to hearing the results of your discussions and deliberations.