What Town Twinning Can Mean For Your Business

The concept of town twinning has been around for some time now. To many people on the street these arrangements don’t mean too much, and perhaps the only difference they will notice is a nice new line on the town’s “Welcome to…” road sign. But twinning is about much more than just ceremony. Many cities are able to forge strategic alliances which can be beneficial to businesses, and often result in new international payments being generated for local companies.

Between them, the cities of the UK have formal agreements with an increasingly diverse range of cities across the globe.

Bristol’s partnership with Guangzhou – China’s third largest city – is a prime example of how twinning arrangements can be very important for businesses of all sizes, particularly in the UK regions which can be overshadowed by the dominant London economy.

China is one of the world’s most important economies and through the Bristol China Partnership, of which the Guangzhou twinning is a central part, the south west of England gets a level of access to this marketplace that it might not otherwise be afforded.

Highlights of the links between Bristol and Guangzhou include a 2012 trade delegation of over a dozen Bristol businesses to Guangzhou, Hangzhou and Shanghai, and the recent opening by the University of the West of England of an office in the Chinese city.

Not too far from Bristol lies Cardiff and the Welsh capital also has Chinese links of its own, in the form of a twinning agreement with Xiamen. The city’s council points to funding by Scandinavian twin Hordaland of Cardiff’s Norwegian Church Arts Centre as an example of twinning generating business.

Belfast’s twin cities are spread as far apart as Bolivia, Germany and South Korea, and one of Northern Ireland’s most notable twinning partnerships is that between its capital and the American city of Nashville, Tennessee.

A direct result of the partnership, the Belfast Nashville Songwriters Festival is gearing up for its 11^th year. The festival is perhaps more about cultural ties than business links, but it’s the type of event that will benefit many companies on both sides of the Atlantic. Not least United Airlines, who as principal sponsor of the festival get to shout from the rooftops about their direct flights from Belfast to the USA.

As forward thinking city leaders continue to discuss twinning arrangements with their peers around the world, business leaders should have multi currency travelcards ready – who knows what opportunities a ceremonial handshake could lead to…