The Lord Mayor of London has pledged to become an unofficial ambassador for Aberdeen as she looks to lure new business to the UK.
Fiona Woolf is on a mission to attract new firms to Britain – and hopes that by banging a drum for the Granite City abroad she can draw new investment to the north-east and the capital.
Ms Woolf, who took the post last year, serves as the global ambassador for UK-based financial and business services.
She described her visit to Aberdeen yesterday as a “listen and learn” experience.
“One of the big issues in the City of London is helping with the growth agenda, and helping to create jobs and particularly jobs for the young,” she said.
“Of course, for every one job in London there are two outside in the UK and that’s certainly true in the energy sector.” An energy lawyer by trade, Ms Woolf said she was keen to foster links with Aberdeen before visiting more than two dozen other countries on forthcoming trade missions.
“It’s about creating links between Aberdeen and the rest of the world because I will travel to 25 countries promoting not just the services that we provide all over the world but also attracting inward-investment to the whole of the UK – and what better place than Aberdeen, particularly if you’ve got a focus on energy,” she said.
“I think that Aberdeen has fantastic niche energy skills and we work all over the world.
“I’m going to be meeting a lot of people in the energy sector who might be buyers of these services.”
Following her visit to Aberdeen and Edinburgh, the lord mayor is planning a two-week trip to the Gulf where she will speak to figures from the energy sector in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
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