Engineering Trade Mission to Magdeburg
Publish Date: Thursday, 09 November 2006
In a bid to develop business links with engineering firms in Germany, a delegation of Council officials and representatives from the engineering sector in Dungannon recently completed a successful trade mission to Magdeburg.
Dungannon and South Tyrone Borough Council has a strategic alliance with the city of Magdeburg and hopes to use these contacts for the benefit of the local business community.
Mayor Jim Hamilton travelled with the group. He says:
"This is Council's first trade mission to Magdeburg, having already forged strong educational and strategic business links with the City Council over the past number of years. I am pleased to be involved with local entrepreneurial engineers and I know that they considered it to be a most useful experience. I look forward to the fruition of these links to the benefit of the very strong engineering community of South Tyrone"
Six companies travelled with the delegation; Spectrum, KMC, Gormleys, Gildernews, Muldoon and McQuaid Engineering. They had one to one business meetings with similar small to medium enterprises over a two day period as organised by the Euro Info Centre and were given the opportunity to visit international engineering companies based in Magdeburg. The most up to date technology was viewed at Europe's biggest environmental Fair in Cologne which gave all involved the opportunity to experience technological advances and research and development equipment.
Meanwhile, the Council delegation which included Mayor Jim Hamilton and Councillor Jim Cavanagh as Chair of Council's Business Sub Committee, met with Magdeburg City Council and its Economic Development department within the Ministry of Economy and Labour which represents the region of Saxony Anhalt. The Council, which controls a population of 2.6million people, is very interested in further co-operation and on learning from Dungannon's experience as an Objective One region within Euro Commission Funding Programme.
