Promoting the UK’s expertise to a global market
With uncertainty in the domestic rail market, it has never been more important to sell UK expertise around the world, RIA’s Exports Director NEIL WALKER tells STEFANIE FOSTER
Shortfalls in Control Period 5 (CP5) funding, the impending Brexit, uncertainty over the future of the Government and the ever-increasing prospect of nationalisation make for troubling times for the UK’s rail businesses. As a result, more and more emphasis is being placed on increasing the export of UK goods and services around the world to maintain a robust economy.
In the summer, the Rail Supply Group launched a Rail Exports Leadership Group with a clear goal - to develop UK capability and double exports by 2025. The Government also launched Infrastructure Exports: UK (IE:UK) to create consortia to bid for global contracts. The support and encouragement for UK businesses with export potential is clearly growing.
A significant organisation in that mix is the Railway Industry Association. RIA works very closely with the Department for International Trade (DIT) as a trade challenge partner, which allows it to run trade missions in partnership with DIT, alongside its own exports missions.
RIA’s Exports Director is Neil Walker. He tells RAIL that he recently came back from a trade mission to Bangladesh: “The mission was led by the Prime Minister’s Trade Envoy to Bangladesh, Rushanara Ali, who is the MP for Bethnal Green and Bow. We took nine different companies over to Bangladesh where we had high-level meetings with rail and metro authorities.”
Walker admits that Bangladesh was not on RIA’s list of priority export destinations (Australia currently tops the list, based on RIA’s research among its members), but DIT approached RIA and asked them to collaborate on a trade mission.
“We saw an awful lot of opportunities. It’s a difficult market, but the welcome we received was second to none and they are very keen to work with us, thinking back to their heritage and how their railways were built.”
£ 625 million is available to help UK exporters and their buyers in Bangladesh through a department within DIT, known as UK Export Finance. It helps UK companies to win export contracts by providing attractive financing terms or by helping them to fulfil orders, either by supplying the working capital or making sure they get paid via export insurance.
DIT has a list of what it calls ‘highvalue campaigns’. Regions where there is significant market intelligence in rail development and where accessibility to UK companies is important fall into this category - deemed to provide potentially high returns for the UK market. South East Asia, Saudi Arabia, Canada, South Africa and Latin America are all on that list.
Getting exposure for UK companies in these and other regions around the world is more cost-effective and successful when it is co-ordinated. RIA manages UK pavilions at key international trade shows, also administering DIT’s trade access programme grants, which help SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) towards the cost of exhibiting.
“Working with government on this allows us to get high-level support from them,” Walker continues “For example, Paul Maynard has joined us at Innotrans [Germany], Middle East Rail [Dubai] and Trako [Poland], helping to facilitate expporting and draw high-profile visitors to the pavilions. He held meetings and listened to what is affecting UK companies in exporting.”
Next year, RIA plans to have three UK pavilions at Innotrans, as well as a presence at several other trade shows. Walker believes more UK companies need to consider exporting: “We realise that there is a lot going on in the domestic market, with shortfalls in CP5, which are well publicised. We feel that exporting is very important. In the last RIA survey we did just over a year ago, our members reported over £400 million worth of export. That’s just from our members. There will be a lot out there that we haven’t captured.”
Walker’s most recent trade mission was to Spain, where RIA ran a rolling stock suppliers mission with about 20 UK delegates. Meetings were arranged in
Working with government allows us to get high-level support from them. Neil Walker, Exports Director, RIA
Barcelona with Alstom, before moving on to Madrid to meet with Talgo and Stadler.
While Walker says the interest these companies have in HS2 is important, RIA’s focus is more on the opportunity to supply UK content into the train builders’ rolling stock in other parts of the world.
Soon after speaking to RAIL, Walker was preparing to lead another mission to Singapore and Malaysia to engage with officials about high-speed and metro development, before heading to Brisbane (Australia) in late November for AusRAIL PLUS, where a small pavilion of nine UK companies gained grant support to attend the trade show.
There is clearly a lot of activity to help UK companies make the most of export opportunities, but where do they start?
“Companies needs to start with the basics,” advises Walker, “They must try to take a structured approach. Understanding the market is particularly important. In my opinion, you need to dedicate at least a person to focusing on export.”
He’s optimistic about the Government’s IE:UK initiative to bring together companies of all sizes to bid for global infrastructure and rail projects in a single UK consortium. “The whole idea, led by industry and supported by government, is to explore how we can form UK consortia overseas. If that works, that will be a whole new dynamic.”
Of course, the elephant in the room is Brexit. RIA’s stance with government is that there will be both challenges and opportunities for UK rail from Britain’s exit from the EU, but that it is essential for rail to be part of future trade deals. Walker emphasises that this makes it all the more important for us to promote the success of the UK’s rail industry.
The Rail Delivery Group’s launch last month of a ‘partnership railway’ goes some way to doing this, promoting combined public and private investment that is said to secure almost £ 85 billion of economic benefits to the UK. Walker says there is a wealth of experience the privatised industry brings in equipping a cost-effective network here and creating the perfect opportunity to export that expertise.
Just as winning contracts in the UK is dependent upon businesses’ commitment to upskilling the local workforce and helping to build a lasting legacy in the country, the same is true of more and more overseas contracts.
Says Walker: “We have a reputation of building the world’s railways and of successfully working with partners around the world. We’re very innovative with smart and intelligent regimes, such as asset management and condition monitoring.
“An SME or bigger company looking to get into exports should investigate what government support is there. The DIT has international trade advisers who are there to help companies take their first steps into exporting. They cover virtually every sector. Or join a RIA mission! There is a lot of support out there, but companies need to be proactive.”