May 8, 2013, by Matt

A day in the life of a Geographer – John Pearson

Many thanks to former Geography student John Pearson for providing us with another blog about his current career.

‘One of the constant features of working in an Embassy abroad is receiving high level visitors. Over the last few months, I have been heavily involved in that.

In March, Lord Stephen Green (Minister for Trade and Investment) visited Mexico with a delegation of 13 UK companies. The aim was to help British companies that want to sell their goods and services to Mexico, and encourage Mexican companies to invest in the UK. The programme for 1.5 days was incredibly busy – about 20 engagements, including a number of high level public events. But it went well, and seems to have helped a number of UK companies with their business here in Mexico.

While in early April, we hosted a visit by the Prime Minister’s Trade Envoy for Mexico, Baroness Jane Bonham-Carter. On her first official visit to Mexico – she was assigned as Trade Envoy in November 2012 – the Baroness got the chance to meet key commentators and discuss the bilateral commercial relationship with facilitating organisations. There was a lot of focus on the very vibrant Mexican creative industries sector. As a television producer, the Baroness has a professional background in this area.  So she spoke at seminars on the topic in both Mexico City and Guadalajara, and met many leading figures in the area that may be able to work with UK creative companies. During her four days with us she visited the Zona Maco contemporary art fair, met the organisers of the forthcoming MexFest in London this July, and spoke to representatives of the “CutOut Fest”, a leading animation festival to be held in Queretaro in November. In Guadalajara, a leading city for the creative industries, she discussed the innovative Digital Creative City project (which is similar to Tech City, the IT cluster in London), and met producers of some leading Mexican video games (including the award winning Taco Master).  We hope she will be back in the autumn, perhaps with some leading British companies from the creative sector.

Add in three other UK trade missions that have visited Mexico in the last two months, and it has meant a busy time for the commercial team here. But it is also a sign of increasing relations between the two countries – which is a good thing.  ‘

• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter
• Share on Google+
• Share on LinkedIn