Thank you very much for inviting me to speak to you today.  It is a great pleasure to be able to pay my first visit to Orange County in my capacity as the United Kingdom’s Special Representative for International Trade and Investment.  I would like to speak to you today about the relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States and in particular the things that we have in common that make us such successful – and natural business partners.  I would also like to offer some thoughts about why the UK and Orange County are natural partners and suggest some areas where, looking to the future, we might be able to do more together.

I should lay my cards on the table right from the outset and say that the United States is, quite simply, our closest ally and our biggest business partner.  Our “special” relationship is longstanding and goes back to before your inception as an independent nation state.  In the last century we shared a particularly close and special relationship in time of war and in the defence of freedom and democracy and we still work together in a special way.  We share common values; common goals and some would even suggest a common language!

We also share a passion for sport.  So it is a particular privilege as our minds turn towards London hosting the Olympic Games in 2012, to have been introduced today by the President of the Los Angeles Olympic Games.  We are committed to delivering a fantastic Games in 2012 – and if we are half as successful as you were in delivering the LA Games Peter, then I believe that we will have every right to feel  pretty pleased with ourselves.

While it is of course clear that the US and UK have many things in common, I intend to focus on the close trade and investment relations that we enjoy.   I must say that is particularly satisfying when starting on a subject of this nature to see the attendance here of over 700 people keen to support the British American Business Chamber of Orange County.  It suggests to me that there are many who share my desire to acknowledge our close business ties and who, like me, wish to stimulate further business between Orange County and the UK.      (It also makes me wonder why my staff has left it 7 years to get me here!  I can do little about that now, but I shall endeavour to ensure that it does not take me another 7 years to return.)

In my role as the United Kingdom’s Special Representative I travel widely in the UK and overseas in support of and in order to enhance business ties.  I seek to help UK based business grow and succeed in what is an increasingly competitive and global economy as well as to encourage them to trade and expand internationally.  I firmly believe that freer and greater trade brings with it benefits far beyond simply generating profit.  It brings sustainable economic and social development, improved governance and poverty reduction through the investment in skills, education and healthcare.

You will note that I said UK based companies and not just UK companies.  This is an important distinction.  It is equally as important to recognise the value and contribution overseas companies make to the UK economy.  And we do recognise this.  Foreign companies investing in the UK bring with them much more than jobs.  Successful international companies bring proven skills, innovation and ideas.  This is why we welcome companies from overseas with open arms and why I encourage them to enter our market and to use the UK as a springboard for further international success. 

And as they seek to do that I, in my role as Special Representative, try to support overseas businesses working from the UK and to help them to make the most of their potential either in the UK or in their further strides to conduct their business’s internationally.  Just as I do for companies whose origins are in the UK. 

This is also why I conduct overseas visits to our most important partners – to recognise the successful partnerships that have been established and to seek to identify new ones. 
I want to emphasise that the United States is the United Kingdom’s most important trading partner!  I want it to be quite clear that we deeply value our business relationship with the US and want to both recognise and encourage more.  That is why I am spending two weeks here criss-crossing the US doing just that.  And it is also why our Minister for Trade and Investment Lord Jones of Birmingham is also in North America and is joining me for engagements on both the West and East Coasts.  We wanted to ensure that we were able to do justice to the extent of our relationship by covering more ground in what is, after all a rather large country.  So while I travel on a Southerly route, Digby is travelling on a Northerly one before we meet up again in New York.  You will be able to deduce from that routes which of the two of us had first choice!

I have no desire to bore you with a string of numbers, but I would like to give you a couple of key statistics to back up what I say about the strength and importance of our relationship.
UK exports of goods and services to the US were worth some $110 billion last year, a significant increase over 2005.  And UK imports in the order of $80 billion over the same period.

I am pleased to say that the UK is also the leading destination for American companies.  In 2006/7 American companies invested some 540 projects in the UK creating over 30,000 jobs; that’s an increase of about a hundred on the previous year.  And I should point out that this is from a total figure of approximately a thousand investment projects from all over the world.  The value of US direct investment in the UK has now reached $320 billion – or 34% of the total of US investment in Europe.  This figure is even more impressive when you consider that Germany for example accounts for a mere 9%, Ireland 6.5% and France 6.4%.  In fact, between 2000 and 2005 the UK attracted four times the amount of investment from the US than went to China.  This is a trend I very much want to support, encourage – and continue!

But it is not just a one way street.  UK investment in the US is also considerable – approximately $350 billion.  But no matter how large or impressive, numbers don’t give the whole picture.  Investment is not just numbers; it affects real people and real lives.  Across the United States today there are one million people working as a result of UK investment in America.  And now, evening in the UK, 1 million people will have got back from working in jobs that jobs that are the direct result of US investment in the UK. 

I have mentioned that part of my job is to visit businesses operating in the UK.  I have visited many of the American companies represented in the UK – from high tech and manufacturing to Financial Services around The City.  In fact I and my office has been pretty relentless over the 7 years I have been Special Representative trying to get round to many of our important inward investors.
So why is it that we are so close?  We are after all separated by a huge ocean.  And from Orange County we are separated by an ocean and a continent!  And on the face of it there are some significant differences – you drink coffee while we drink tea, we watch football while you watch baseball.  And you have Trunks and we have boots you have elevators and we have lifts (although I have picked up a new term for them this visit – my security detail refer to it as a box and every time I get in one I hear “we’re in the box”!

Yes there are of course differences.  But I would suggest that what we have in common far outweighs these.  We both have knowledge driven, diverse and open economies with a powerful sense of innovation and ideas.  We like to think that the UK has a great deal to offer.
We in the UK pride ourselves on being one of the World’s freest markets – an open economy with light touch, independent regulation and consecutive growth for 60 quarters – that’s 15 years!  A feat unrepeated in a developed economy.  In fact, since 2001 we are the only G7 economy that has not experienced a single quarter of contraction in our economy.   The UK is a very small geographic area when you consider the USA and then California in particular.  Where are you when you travel an hour in LA; LA; but from London you are in Bristol or nearly Birmingham.  It is not just London that is growing and developing.  Other UK cities – Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and Belfast and many others are also growing quickly, boasting vibrant economies confident in their own identity and ability as business hubs.

There is an overwhelming sense of dynamism, creativity and innovation that I have seen here – and I see it on a regular basis in the UK.  I have had the pleasure of calling on some inspiring OC companies who embody the close business relationship that I have spoken of.  They have invested in the UK and are already taking advantage of the world class R&D base within Britain to undertake research and the development of new products.  This morning I visited Allergan’s R&D laboratories and heard about the company’s excellent record of achievement from its (British) Chairman and CEO David Pyott. 

And I have also this week visited Broadcom, who are also, I am sure, very well known to you.  In the same way that Allergan is at the forefront of exciting new developments in the pharmaceutical sphere, so Broadcom are in the IT world.  And most of the technology that they showed me will come to a device near us all soon, I am assured.

Whilst I am here principally to recognise the value we place on your investment in the UK I should also mention some of the impressive British companies I have seen during my time in California.  Last Thursday I was delighted to have the opportunity to open a new Fresh and Easy neighbourhood market store in Compton.  Tesco, or Fresh and Easy are introducing a new, dynamic shopping experience to the American market – with a focus on fresh, healthy produce and keen prices.  Quite apart from the fact it was exactly the kind of store that I would be happy to shop in; this is a well thought out and considered investment bringing a new service to the US consumer of all backgrounds that domestic suppliers cannot yet achieve; thereby increasing the level of competition and consumer choice and importantly price.

And last Friday I visited the BT HQ in America, located in El Segundo for a groundbreaking for their new solar panel installation that will provide some 20% of the power they need to run their headquarters.  I was delighted to see a prominent UK company playing a leading role in combating one of the biggest challenges that is facing our planet.  I refer, of course, to climate change.
I am on record as saying that I believe climate change to be a global problem that requires global solutions.  It is a field where I also believe that the UK and US should bring to bear our combined intellectual capability in research, development, finance to reduce the effects of climate change.  I am pleased that there are companies like BT who realise the importance of moving to a low carbon economy.

California is known and admired throughout the world for the leading role it has played in developing low carbon technologies and visionary thinking on climate change.  Governor Schwarzenegger’s leadership and support in this process is to be admired.  California is showing that combating the effects of climate change and economic development are not mutually exclusive.  And although the UK is a small country emitting far smaller amounts of the cocktail of greenhouse gases it is clear that we “get it” (have understood the message).  In the last 10 years the UK economy has grown by 28%.  Yet in that same time our greenhouse gas emissions have fallen by 7%.  We are not complacent and we recognise that we can’t do it alone.  But we can help demonstrate clearly that action by a nation or State can have leadership value and we can and must reduce emissions by at least a half if we are to stop any further deterioration in the human beings effect on the planet.

While there is a moral obligation for us to combat climate change, there are also good business reasons that will encourage us to do so as well.  Recent studies suggest that responding to climate change could be a $60 billion business opportunity for companies in Britain alone over the next 10 years – and a global world market of $500 billion by 2020!  So the incentives for business are clear – and potentially very rewarding.

I would therefore encourage all businesses and for that matter colleges and universities, to think about the ways in which they can collaborate and work together to invent and innovate in this vital area of global need. 

Ladies and gentlemen, I hope in this short discourse I have given you an idea of how and why the business relationship between the UK and the US and OC are so vitally important.  I hope that I have given you a flavour of what the UK has to offer, that you are encouraged to hear of the very fine work that our companies are already engaged in.  And perhaps more importantly I hope that you will be enthused enough to consider what your company might do to reap the benefits of working even more closely with the United Kingdom.