Cllr Gary Millar interview (Mayoral Lead for Business and International Trade) 24th January 2018
Channel: John Brace
Date: 17/04/2018

Interview with Cllr Gary Millar (Liverpool City Council Mayoral Lead for Business and International Trade) 24th January 2018

Recorded and interviewed by John Brace https://johnbrace.com/
Subtitles by John Brace https://johnbrace.com/

Liverpool Town Hall, Town Hall, High St, Liverpool L2 3SW

DATE: 24TH JANUARY 2018
TIME: 5:40 PM

SPEAKERS: 
JOHN BRACE (JB)
CLLR GARY MILLAR (GM)

Total Length: 02:50

JB: I'll explain this is err Gary Millar, and you're the Mayoral Lead for is it Business and ..?

GM: Business and International Trade yeah. So I have an indirect link in to the err, 2018 International Business Festival. 

Errm we musn't get confused in thinking that that's a local government event, it's actually a national government event funded by the national government err and organised on their behalf by Liverpool Vision.

JB: Because it is in Liverpool? 

GM: It's in Liverpool again for the third time, so the last two business festivals 2014, 2016, obviously they run in June of each year. The first one was seven weeks, the next one was three weeks, the one this year 2018 is three weeks, and errm, it'll probably bring in about a hundred or so international delegations, it'll probably bring in about twenty-five thousand to thirty thousand business delegates, who are mainly coming for conferences and events organised by external organisations and there'll be like global events, err.. 

JB: Yeah, like fringe events and things like that like?

GM: Well, there'll be fringes as well, but most of the global ones. For example there is one called the Global Forum for err Foreign Direct Investment and that was in Shanghai last year and.. 

JB: You travelled there? 

GM: I went to Shanghai to take the baton from them to then bring to Liverpool because the event organised by them and not by Vision, not by the government, but by the organisers, would bring in the likes of CNN, the IMF, the World Bank and make major investors who'll be looking at the UK and Africa and America and Europe and the Far East as where can they spend their money? It's great that they're here, because they can see what opportunities in the City Region and what exists in the Northern Powerhouse and what might exist in the rest of the UK. So they use this err and Liverpool as a springboard or a launchpad to see what else is happening not just in Europe but also the Commonwealth as well.

JB: Yes

GM: So there'll be a  lot of African err businesses and organisations and governments there.

JB: And there's a big link with the Commonwealth again?

GM: Yes. And I'm actually very much involved in the Commonwealth because one of the things I'm also involved in and it's expanding is currently called the Liverpool Commonwealth Association. It's about trade, it's about investment, it's about education, it's about health, err it's about culture, it's about communities.

JB: I think they spoke at a previous Council meeting?

GM: They did, they did and I chair that and that's about to expand to become the Merseyside and Cheshire Commonwealth Association because post-Brexit, we need to be trading more with the Commonwealth and with the States et cetera. 

JB: Unfortunately I have to end it there but thank you.