THE East of England Development Agency is celebrating an “excellent” performance over the past year, including jobs creation and attracting private investment into deprived areas.
THE East of England Development Agency is celebrating an “excellent” performance over the past year, including jobs creation and attracting private investment into deprived areas.
New figures published yesterday by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) showed during the 2006/07 financial year, EEDA created 4,270 new jobs in the region, and helped 4,787 people to get a job.
They also revealed that it had created or attracted 2,476 new businesses to the region and helped 13,971 firms improve their performance. It also helped 440 businesses to engage in new collaborations with the UK knowledge data base.
BERR also said the agency had attracted £104million of private sector investment to regenerate deprived areas, with 52% of the cash coming from the private sector.
It regenerated 46 hectares of brownfield land and helped 33,174 people develop their skills.
The Minister of State for Competitiveness Stephen Timms said: “This is another excellent result for EEDA, which has once again achieved its core targets and improved the overall economic outlook for the region.
“Working with its partners, it is making a real difference and I am pleased that nationally, as a network, the Regional Development Agencies have met or exceeded all their targets.
“RDAs play an essential part in improving growth and development, increasing employment opportunities, promoting and assisting re-development of brownfield sites, and working with local partners to regenerate their communities.”
He added that Regional Development Agencies had welcomed the strengthening of their role in driving economic growth, unveiled last week in the Sub-National Review of Economic Development. The review scrapped regional assemblies as of 2010, and handed their economic development functions to regional development agencies.
EEDA chief executive David Marlow described the organisation's performance as “strong”.
“Over the past year, the East of England Development Agency has played its part in some important achievements that have supported businesses, changed lives and turned around communities,” he said.
“EEDA's performance for the last 12 months has been strong, and I'm particularly proud of the fact that we have created over 4,200 new jobs in the region and helped almost 14,000 businesses to improve.
“We will continue to work hard with our partners to strengthen the region and its economy.”
Sarah.chambers@eadt.co.uk
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