BRITISH PRIME minister David Cameron is convening a total of 17 summits in London over the next month as the government seeks to exploit the presence of scores of heads of government and state for the Olympics to raise at least £1 billion of inward investment.
Senior ministers have been banned from an early summer holiday as the government tries to ensure Britain is properly represented at the summits, which will be devoted to different parts of the world and different industrial sectors.
One of the highlights of a month of intense diplomacy will come on Thursday when the government hosts a Global Investment Conference at Lancaster House, which has been renamed the “British Business Embassy” during the Olympics.
This will be attended by 200 ministers and business leaders from around the world.
Nick Baird, the chief executive of UK Trade and Investment, the government body that is organising the summit, said he hopes to attract £1 billion of investment.
“We will be hosting 17 business summits, nearly 4,000 top business guests and we hope for £1 billion of business,” Mr Baird tweeted.
No 10 declined to deny reports that the government hopes to attract as much as £4 billion in investment.
The investment summit will take place on the day that the prime minister receives Mitt Romney in Downing Street.
The Republican nominee for the US presidential election will be stopping off in London for the opening ceremony of the Olympics at the start of a tour that will also take him to Poland and Israel.
The first of the 17 London summits devoted to a country – China – will take place at Lancaster House on Friday, hours before the formal opening ceremony of the Olympics.
A summit devoted to Brazil, whose president, Dilma Rousseff, will be greeted in No 10 by Mr Cameron tomorrow, will be held on August 11th.
The official reason for the China and Brazil summits is that they are the previous and next hosts of the Olympics. But Britain is clear that China and Brazil, as leading members of the Bric countries, are key emerging markets for Britain.
The other 17 summits will cover areas such as creative services, education, energy and infrastructure, engineering and aerospace. The final summit will be on September 6th and 7th.
The Global Investment Conference on Thursday will be attended by Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund; and Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank.
The prime minister’s spokesman said: “This is not about the Olympics. This is using the opportunity of the Olympics and the fact that there will be lots of people in town to forge links with international businesses, look for opportunities for inward investment.” – (Guardian service)