Midlands Engine publishes Global and Investment Scorecard – August 2023

Following the first edition of the Global and Investment (G and I) Scorecard published in September 2022, the second Midlands Engine G and I report has now been released.

The scorecard provides a high-level summary of how the Midlands is performing across five key themes: trade, business, investment, higher education and tourism.

A ‘Green’ scoring indicates an improvement in performance and figures being above the national average with ‘Amber’ indicating an improvement in performance but below national average and ‘Red’ indicating either a decline in performance or a performance that is below the national average.

The scorecard, which is RAG rated covers all data available until June 2023.

Significant findings from the report include:

• In the year to Q1 2023, exports in goods from the Midlands area were worth £56.8bn which has increased by £9.9bn, or 21.2% since the year to Q1 2022, compared to UK 17.5% nationally.
• FDI in the manufacturing sector reached £59.8bn, an increase of 16.0% (+£8.2bn) for the Midlands, compared to just 5.1% for the UK. Notably, for the West Midlands region in 2021, manufacturing accounted for 46.3% (£42.3bn) of the total (£91.4bn).
• There were 265 FDI projects into the Midlands in 2022-23, an increase of 23 (9.5%) compared to 2020-21. The UK’s national average was 4.1%. 43.4% (314 of 742 total projects) of Midlands FDI projects between 2020-21 to 2022-23 were from EU countries, higher than the UK average of 38.4%.
• The number of international students entering Midlands Engine higher education institutions increased from 77,065 to 86,865. This equated to a 12.7% increase for the Midlands, above the UK-wide 12.4% increase.

You can access the full scorecard in the Midlands Engine Resource Library here