More than 200 Japanese manufacturing companies have booked for meetings in their own country...to be told why they should set up shop in Yorkshire.

Experts on inward investment and automotive component manufacture addressed them at a seminar in Nagoya.

And at another gathering in Tokyo on Tuesday they will hear why they should target Yorkshire for expansion in the mobile telecommunications sector.

The seminars are being run by the Regional Promotional Strategy, a marketing initiative co-ordinated by the Yorkshire and Humberside Development Agency on behalf of local authorities in the region, and English Partnerships.

Speakers include Professor John Gardiner of the University of Bradford, Glen Massey, who heads up Coopers and Lybrand's UK inward investment team, Neil McCartney of the Financial Times and two Japanese investors into the region, Koyo Bearings of Barnsley and automotive parts maker Denso Marston which employs a total of 830 people in its plants in Shipley and Leeds.

The Regional Promotional Strategy is also running a series of events in the US and elsewhere in the Far East, including exhibiting at major shows covering food processing and healthcare sectors.

A new range of promotional literature marketing Yorkshire abroad has been produced in time for the big marketing thrust which will include the whole of North America.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.