FTPB - News - APRIL 2007

FTPB News n° 6 - 17 April 2007

I have already talked to you about the Best of French Information Technology Supplement that FTPB has been working on, in co-operation with the Trade Section of the French Embassy (Mission Economique) and the Invest in France Agency. It has now been finalized by the team at Information Age and is due to go out to the magazine’s subscribers with the May edition of the magazine.

We started working on this project in November 2006; it has been well worth it and we are very pleased with the result — at 32 pages, the Supplement will truly make it possible to showcase the best of French IT, while identifying the trends underlying the sector in France and outlining the role played by the competitiveness clusters (or pôles de compétitivité).

At the end of March, I was in France for a week to attend the Seminar of all the directors of UBIFRANCE press bureaux around the world — an annual event we all look forward to, if only because it gives us the opportunity to meet up, and to meet the management of UBIFRANCE in our headquarters, near Denfert-Rochereau.

There are 13 press bureaux around the world and superstitious directors will be relieved that two more are soon to be added to the list — indeed UBIFRANCE is due to open a press bureau in Moscow and another one in New Delhi, bringing the total up to 15. Russia and India are two fast-growing economies that attract a lot of interest, as we all know. (The other press bureaux are Bangkok, Beijing, Cairo, Chicago, Düsseldorf, Hong Kong, Madrid, Mexico, Milan, Sao Paolo, Tokyo, and Warsaw.)

The Seminar includes three days for meeting potential clients, i.e. mostly SMEs in a wide range of sectors. The first two days take place in Paris, and on the third day we travel to various cities around France. I was sent to Bordeaux, which is only three hours from Paris on the TGV high-speed train. It all went very well and I met about 35 company representatives, many of them running remarkably innovative businesses. Some have become clients already, such as Sphinx Survey, for instance.

Quite a few other things have kept us busy. Kate Ambler, FTPB’s press officer, has worked on a press trip that will take a British journalist to Lille and Lyons to learn more about technical textiles (8 to 11 May). He will meet up with two German colleagues over there. And I am due to travel over to Corsica in early May in order to finalize the parameters of our action for promoting the industries of this island region of France.

Last but not least, if you are available on 18 April at 9:30am, and you are interested in the aerospace industry, you are most welcome to attend the conference at the Royal Aeronautical Society in Central London, which will outline exciting developments at the upcoming Le Bourget Air Show in Paris. FTPB has helped organize the event in London, working closely with the Franco-British Chamber of Commerce (CCFGB). For additional information, get in touch with Kate as soon as possible.

I hope you will enjoy reading the April edition of our bulletin. The next edition of FTPB News should come out round mid-June.

Philip Jolly, Managing Director, FTPB

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