New trade partnership with UK announced

1st joint event with life sciences association planned for October

The city of Mentor continues to expand its foreign trade efforts with another partnership in the United Kingdom.

City Manager Ken Filipiak recently announced plans to enter into a strategic collaboration with Medilink Midlands to promote bilateral trade and investment between the Midlands region of the UK and Northeast Ohio.

Medilink Midlands is a life sciences industry association whose aim is to help companies establish, develop and grow, he said in a report to City Council. It has a network of more than 8,000 contacts, and supports and promotes 1,700-plus organizations in the Midlands region.

The UK has the third-largest medical technology sector in Europe, and the Midlands has the largest regional cluster in this sector, including nearly 800 such companies, Filipiak said.

“Links between Northeast Ohio and the UK are set to become more important following a substantial investment by the Cleveland Clinic in what is currently the largest hospital development in the UK,” he said. “The city of Mentor looks forward to

becoming a focal point for stimulating trade and investment between Northeast Ohio and the UK life sciences sector.”

More than 700 medical and bioscience companies are located in the Mentor region, including STERIS, General Electric, Siemens, Philips, Toshiba and Hitachi.

The collaboration is the first international relationship announced by Medilink Midlands since it was launched earlier this

month, said Medilink Director Darren Clark in a prepared statement.

“Northeast Ohio is an attractive strategic location for Midlands companies looking to establish a low-cost foothold in the largest medical and life sciences market in the world,” he said.

The first initiative between the two organizations is being planned for late October. Details will be forthcoming.

“Northeast Ohio and the Midlands region in the UK are very similar economically,” Mentor Community Relations Administrator Ante Logarusic said. “This

is a part of the Mentor International Trade Initiative’s ongoing mission to explore opportunities and promote our companies’ capabilities overseas.”

The city will enter a memorandum of understanding with Medilink pledging to facilitate trade and investment activities and promotion.

The partnership was borne out of the city’s annual spring trade mission to the UK and Germany.

This is the second UK trade partner for the city. A “sister city” relationship was entered with Solihull Metropolitan Borough out Birmingham in 2016.

“Our relationship with Solihull, as well as the Midlands region as a whole, continues to strengthen since we have identified potential opportunities and synergies,” Mentor International Trade Administrator Mercedes SanchezMoore said.

“This new (memorandum of understanding) with Medlink can be partially attributed to connections which have been built over the past five years.”