Skills and training are one of the key drivers for modern electronics manufacturing and design and it is vitally important that our companies engage with the help that the Government and its agencies have made available. I am delighted that so many representatives from UKEA trade associations along with companies and other partner organisations have taken the time to attend and contribute to our event today.

Two important new industry led initiatives were launched at the conference, the UK Electronics Skills Foundation and www.electronicsskillsmap.com. The UK Electronics Skills Foundation will help to secure a sustainable supply of quality and industry-prepared graduates and help to address the threat of diminishing skills capability in the UK electronics sector while Electronics Skills Map will provide much clearer signposting to the vast range of schemes offering skills provision for UK businesses. These are very significant initiatives in terms of improving the delivery of skills and training in our sector.

We welcomed the opportunity to enable representatives from our sector to meet again with their counterparts in Government following the very successful first conference we organised last year. It was pleasing to see that progress has been made since our previous conference but there is still much to be done to ensure that initiatives by Government to improve skills provision are effective and that industry is able to maximise the benefits from these initiatives to compete in the current economic climate.