This piece was written for South London Export Club and published in The Business Monthly, a Croydon-based magazine. It also appears on the export club website www.slec.biz
IT WAS pitch dark when a business delegation from Sutton in south London roused itself and made ready for a busy day in France.
And it was just as dark when it returned home some 18 hours later.
In the interim it visited the borough’s twin town of Gagny in the eastern suburbs of Paris to see what prospects there might be for a commercial entente between the two.
Gagny is a city in its own right, a status of which it is naturally proud, but it is substantially smaller than Sutton.
At 38,000 the population of this petite French city is about one-fifth that of the London borough, but the two have similar challenges and have chosen similar strategies to counter them.
In employment and enterprise, both feel the pull of the inner capital that tempts residents to commute in return for better pay, while both are further squeezed by larger suburban neighbours.
For Sutton it is the lure of Croydon and Kingston that makes it more difficult to establish itself, while for Gagny it is the many attractions of Euro Disney.
Both communities have chosen to counter competition by opting for a better quality of life.
While Sutton pursues a noticeably green agenda, maximising the benefits of its many open spaces, Gagny presents itself as a garden suburb, with trees and shrubs in every street and hanging baskets on lampposts, all lovingly tended by the city council.
The Sutton delegation, lead by Paul Cawthorne, chairman of the Chamber of Commerce, was received by Michel Teulet, the mayor of Gagny, in the 18th century city hall, skilfully modernised to meet the demands of the 21st century.
The mayor told his guests that he was particularly keen to counter the rising trend in commuting among his city’s working population and he hoped that forging a closer alliance with the businesses of Sutton would encourage more of his fellow citizens to establish their own firms within the city.
He is also looking to attract inward investment from larger international companies, he said, and he believes Gagny can learn useful lessons from Sutton’s experience in this respect.
After a working lunch, during which the largely monolingual English and French contingents still managed to make themselves understood, the mayor and his team made a formal presentation in the council chamber.
Gagny is part of the French department (broadly equivalent to an English county or a sub-region of Greater London) of Seine-Saint-Denis, which, in turn, is part of the country’s Ile de France region that includes central Paris.
Later the French took their guests for a coach tour of Gagny, during which they were keen to point out a large development site overlooking the city and with a good view of the Eifel Tower, where work is about to start on a major shopping complex and a mixed private and public housing scheme.
Mr Cawthorne was delighted by the warm welcome his delegation received. He hopes this visit was only the first of what will become a regular series of meetings in Sutton and Gagny that will build enthusiasm among the two business communities to develop a special trading relationship.
Bryan Treherne, chairman of South London Export Club, who helped Sutton Chamber to organise the event, was equally pleased.
He said: “These fact-finding missions are a marvellous introduction to exporting for many businesses that might not otherwise consider it.
“They offer all the advantages of seeing and testing an overseas market without the pressure to come back with an order when that may not be appropriate.”
Our picture shows Michel Teulet, executive Mayor of Gagny (left), making a point to Paul Cawthorne, chairman of Sutton Chamber of Commerce - picture by Gareth Curtis
IT WAS pitch dark when a business delegation from Sutton in south London roused itself and made ready for a busy day in France.