13 – Thames Valley scores highly and is best small region in the UK

Tuesday, 14th February 2012

Every 2 years, FDi Intelligence, a Financial Times company, publishes its European Cities & regions of the Future report. The ranking focuses on a mixture of data and expert opinion to rank cities and regions which have the best prospects for inward investment, economic development and business expansion. Submissions were received from 253 cities and 110 regions. The results of the 2012/13 study have just been released. The Thames Valley is ranked the 10th overall region and 3rd within the UK, 5th overall in small regions and best in the UK. Also the area is 2nd in small regions for human resources and 6th for direct investment strategy.

The performance of Reading, Slough and Oxford is stronger than 2010, despite the South East slipping from the top of the large region ranking. Individual town highlights are as follows:

Slough: 3rd overall for infrastructure, 1st micro city in infrastructure, 4th overall in the micro city category. 3rd micro city for quality of life behind Luxembourg and Monaco – top in UK

Reading (included as part of TVCC submission & submission made independently by Reading UKCIC): 5th overall out of all cities in Europe, 1st overall in the micro cities, 3rd in business friendliness and 4th in direct investment

Oxford: ranked no 7 micro city, no 1 for human resources, no 9 for quality of life

Paul Britton, Head of Inward Investment and Re-Investment, Thames Valley Chamber said: “The Chamber was invited by fDi Magazine to make a submission and we are delighted that Reading and Slough have scored highly. These results demonstrate that the Thames Valley remains attractive and highly competitive for inward investment and expansion projects by multinational companies. The report is also good news for the counties of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire.”

Note that micro cities have a population of less than 250,000 and small regions a population of up to 250,000. The full report can be downloaded by visiting www.fdiintelligence.com

Press enquiries to:

Chamber Press Office
01753 870552