Birmingham Voted Best European Business Environment

June 18 2008

Another first for Birmingham, as the city is ranked as the 'best business environment' in Europe and one of the top three 'most dynamic European cities' when it comes to encouraging entrepreneurship, Birmingham City Council Leader, Councillor Mike Whitby announced today.

The European Cities Entrepreneurship Ranking (ECER) places Birmingham above London as the top UK business environment, and above European locations including Paris, Rome, Madrid and Berlin. Birmingham came top out of all 21 cities surveyed when it came to the 'economic environment, infrastructure and the quality of life' provided.

According to the ECER report Birmingham also came third behind the Swedish cities of Gothenburg and Stockholm as one of the best places in Europe to encourage entrepreneurship.

Councillor Whitby travelled to Lyon, France, today to collect the award for the top business environment in Europe from his long-standing European colleague and friend the Mayor of Lyon, Gerard Collomb. He said he was 'extremely proud' and called the award 'a great achievement for the city' that entrepreneurs themselves from across Europe had ranked Birmingham as the best.
 
'This is excellent news on the back of last Tuesday's announcement, that the 2008 Mercer Report ranks Birmingham as 56th, globally, on the quality of life index - one of only three UK cities included. My personal ambition is to see our great city elevated to the top 20 best cities to live in over the next 20 years. And today's entrepreneurship ranking tells us that we are well on our way,' he said.

'Our sophisticated links across the world, especially with the private sector, are helping to lever more than £17 billion worth of investment, both under construction and proposed, into Birmingham over the next ten years creating nearly 40,000 new jobs.'

Councillor Whitby added that he was honoured to be the only UK city to receive an award and that it was recognition of the city's dynamic business environment and innovation in attracting investors from across the globe, highlighting its ambition with projects such as the Big City Plan, New Street Gateway, and the Library of Birmingham.

The ECER project, initiated by Lyon Ville de l'Entrepreneuriat, established a ranking of entrepreneurial cities based on how the quality of service is perceived by contractors in 27 European cities.

Explaining why the project was set up, Gerard Collomb said: 'Encouraging business creation has become one of the key features of public policy at European, national and regional level. Local initiatives - in particular those spearheaded by local authorities and public and semi-public bodies - have seen an increase, with ambitious objectives relating to entrepreneurship and the capacity of cities to attract business.'

The ECER report said Birmingham had witnessed an amazing transformation over the last 30 years, giving birth to an 85% service-based economy in change more rapid than the national economy.

It said Birmingham had successfully built an attractive city for business with: an urban regeneration policy after the industrial crisis in the seventies and eighties; an attractive and active policy for entrepreneurship and business development; and an innovative and strategic approach in the United Kingdom.

Ranked across a number of themes, Birmingham's strengths were identified as environment (first) and promotion (second) signalling the city's efforts to change the city image and economic environment.

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