A campaign to promote East Anglian food and tourism to China looks set to step up a gear in 2018, organisers say.

LinksEast, which promotes trade between small and medium-sized East Anglian businesses and China, organised an event in Southwold in December as part of the campaign. It said exports to China are on the increase.

Delegates to the lunch event, which included invited guests from local hotels and restaurants and a delegation of post-graduate Chinese students from the University of East Anglia (UEA), heard from a series of speakers about the high quality food and drink on offer in the region.

The lunch was hosted by Adnams at its newly-refurbished Swan Hotel in Southwold on Friday, December 15, and builds on Chinese film star and former University of East Anglia (UEA) student Jiang Shuying’s visit to Norwich in September.

That visit was part of the UK’s government’s Spirit of Youth campaign launched in Beijing in July by the actress along with the Princess Royal and British ambassador to China Dame Barbara Woodward. The China-wide campaign aims to promote deeper collaboration and exchange between the UK and China.

The Southwold lunch heard from speakers including Bradley Adnams of Southwold brewers and pub and hotels group Adnams. Delegates also heard from Thinley Topden, deputy regional director at the Department of International Trade, Chris Cotton regional director of the China-Britain Business Council (CBBC), Tiptree-based jam maker Wilkin & Sons’ Chinese brand ambassador Tingting He, and Clarke Willis, chairman of LinksEast.

“With the increasing trade in this region to China and the close collaboration between UEA supporting this initiative, 2018 looks set to have even closers links for Suffolk/Norfolk with China,” LinksEast said.

LinksEast hosts the LinksEast Forum, a series of round table discussions at the House of Lords, where invited guests from specific East Anglian market communities meet with representatives of the UK and Chinese governments to discuss how to export to China.

The forum forms the basis of a ‘self help’ exchange of knowledge and ideas, with regional meetings.

The lunch event was sponsored by Blockslegal LLP.