Gloucestershire nurturing new relationships in Hanover, Germany

For the first time, Gloucestershire had a presence at the world's leading trade fair for agricultural technology, Agritechnica in Hanover, Germany.

Agritechnica is a showcase for the global agricultural engineering industry and a forum for sector innovation.

Gloucestershire’s Local Enterprise Partnership, GFirst LEP sent their Inward Investment team supporting a number of Gloucestershire’s businesses including BASF, Hummingbird, Ap Air, Bosch Rexroth and Glas Data.

The show featured 2,820 exhibitors and welcomed over 450,000 visitors with 130,000 coming from 152 different countries.

The guiding theme 'Global Farming – Local Responsibility' focused on the current challenges of agriculture, such as increasing productivity and protection of the climate, environment and resources worldwide.

GFirst LEP in partnership with the Department for International Trade (DiT) hosted a networking event at the UK Pavilion.

Chris Lau, Head of Inward Investment for GFirst LEP said, “We were delighted to be the first Local Enterprise Partnership to partner with the Department for International Trade to promote the Agri-Tech sector and it was a great opportunity for us to promote Gloucestershire’s impressive Agri-tech proposition”

There was good news from the show’s visitor survey, reporting that two-thirds of the farmers, businesses and contractors surveyed intend to invest in the next two years.

The Inward Investment Team is led by GFirst LEP but is a collaboration between Gloucestershire County Council and all six local authorities - Cheltenham, Cotswold, Forest of Dean, Gloucester City, Stroud and Tewkesbury.