UBIFRANCE UK News

UBIFRANCE UK News n° 19 - 18 December 2009

Since our September issue of UBIFRANCE UK News, a lot has been happening at the press bureau, touching on a wide range of sectors through our various PR activities.

Our colleagues in the Equipment Goods & Engineering Department organised a successful one-day B2B event and seminar alongside the Grove Fuel Cells Symposium, which took place between 21 and 24 September in central London, bringing together experts and entrepreneurs from France, Britain and other countries to discuss the highly topical issue of fuel-cell technology.

Many, while acknowledging the challenges faced by the technology, reckon that it will, in due course, take over as far as the powering of road vehicles (including privately owned cars) is concerned. As several experts I talked to told me, electric cars and dual-fuel vehicles (petrol and electric) stand to be a short-to-medium-term stop-gap between conventional petrol and diesel technology on the one hand, and genuinely novel forms of energy such as fuel cells, on the other – and the latter represent the long-term future of land-based transport. No doubt many commentators might express reservations, but I am also sure some investors are already putting a lot of their money into these promising projects, which should drastically cut levels of carbon dioxide in the environment in due course.

Our colleagues in the Consumer Goods Department of Mission Economique UBIFRANCE, the French Trade Commission, for their part, organised a French Fashion Showroom at the Meridien hotel (in central London) on 18 November, and the press bureau was also involved in the promotion of this exciting event. As the selection of stories in this bulletin illustrates, there is no doubting the wide range of topics that the team at the press bureau covers.

The highlight of the early part of the last quarter of 2009 will have been, for everyone at the French Trade Commission, the official inauguration of our new offices, located in the heart of London’s West End, which took place on 23 October. The event was attended by Anne-Marie Idrac, French Secretary of State in charge of Foreign Trade; Maurice Gourdault-Montagne, French Ambassador to London; Alain Cousin, President of UBIFRANCE, the French export-support agency; and Christophe Lecourtier, Director-General of UBIFRANCE, together with many other guests.

Henri Baissas, Director of the French Trade Commission, had also wanted the event to give us the opportunity to meet our partners in the French chambers of commerce & industry (CCIs), so that my counterparts in the other departments and myself had productive meetings with delegates representing numerous CCIs from across France. An official dinner was organised on 22 October to welcome them on the day before the inauguration.

The other highlight of the last few months will have been our Christmas party on 9 December. The press bureau, when known as the French Technology Press Bureau (or FTPB), used to organise a party every two years on average, in order to thank our media partners (more particularly the journalists and editors working for the British trade press) for their continued support and their ongoing interest in French industry, technology, products, and design. Now that the press bureau is a fully fledged department of the French Trade Commission in the UK, it may be possible to organise such a party each year – watch this space, as they say.

In any event, the 9 December party was a complete success. Over 100 people attended, with a large number of journalists representing all quarters of the specialist press and other media too (including newswires, web-based media, and audio-visual media). The press bureau’s institutional partners were also represented, with – among others – Florence Gomez, CEO of CCFGB (the French Chamber of Commerce in Great Britain); Michele Jackson, CEO of Promosalons (the body that promotes French trade shows outside France); Fabrice Etienvre, CEO of Invest in France Agency in the UK (France’s inward-investment agency); and Patrice Hourbette, Director of Bureau Export (the London office of the French music bureau, which supports French musicians and singers operating outside France). Last but certainly not least, Raymond Blanc, the famous chef and restaurateur, joined the other guests, which gave him the opportunity to talk extensively to Stéphanie de Boüard de Laforest, who was representing Cercle Rive Droite.

Cercle Rive Droite is a syndicate of producers of quality Bordeaux wine – many of them world-famous vintage wines – and Château de Boüard is one of them. Miss de Boüard is indeed related to the owners of the château, as proved by the labels on the bottles… I can only say that the wines on offer, as part of the wine tasting expertly conducted by Miss de Boüard, were truly excellent – and the whites from the Fédération des Vignerons Indépendants were just as impressive.

I should add that a splendid range of top-quality champagnes were on offer, courtesy of our colleagues in the – highly strategic – Food & Drink Department. In conclusion, I can only commiserate if you could not make it and were not able to join us!

We all know 2009 has been a difficult (or very difficult) year for many businesses (including many publishing houses) in the UK and in other countries (including France), with the punitive impact this has had on the career and livelihood of scores of journalists, news writers, and freelancers in Britain. We can only hope that 2010 will be a far better year, and indeed there are already many signs that an economic recovery has started or is about to begin across Europe, depending on the country and sector one considers.

The next issue of UBIFRANCE UK News will be sent to you around mid-February 2010. Together with my colleagues, I wish you and your family a good end-of-year break, a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Philip Jolly

Manager — Press Office

Mission Economique UBIFRANCE, the French Trade Commission in London

Agriculture & Horticulture

Design & Innovation

Energy & the Environment

Fashion & Textiles

IT & Manufacturing

Medical & Healthcare

Transport & Logistics

Agriculture & Horticulture

Millésime Bio 2010 to appeal to organically aware wine drinkers

Millésime Bio 2010 – the world’s only professional trade fair devoted to organic wines – will be held in Montpellier (southern France) from 25 to 27 January 2010. Millésime Bio is organised by the Inter-professional Association of Organic Wines from Languedoc-Roussillon (AIVB – LR).