Business minister Stephen Timms has called for an end to what he describes as the sterile North/South divide debate.
Timms said: “London has been an extraordinarily successful world city over the past decade - comparable always to New York, Tokyo, Singapore - but with an ever stronger claim today to pre-eminence among them, with more and more people arguing that London is now the world's capital city.
“But we need other comparisons to give a rounded picture of how other English regions are performing. And what we find is that their relative performance has been strengthening. So, for example, from 1995 to 2004, growth in South Yorkshire was almost double that of Dusseldorf in Germany or Lorraine in France.”
Timms also announced a London School of Economics-led consortium had been chosen to lead a new research centre to ensure economic development brought benefits to all regions of Britain.
The minister said the new Centre for Research on Spatial Economics would draw together evidence on regional economic development and look at why there are differences in productivity between regions.
He added: “We need a better understanding of how challenges such as globalisation will affect different areas in our country, so that we can know how to frame a policy that works better for all parts of Britain.
“The aim of the Centre is to put the UK at the forefront of research into economic location; so we can get a real grip on where value is generated, and how we can make sure that our policies can enable every place to reach its potential.”
© Crimson Business Ltd. 2008
