Lord Digby Jones delivered nine speeches in four days on a whistle-stop tour of Washington DC, Pittsburgh and Boston. The theme of the tour was ‘Innovation and the value-added economy.’
Commenting on a successful series of speaking engagements, Lord Digby Jones said: “The developed world has the route to success in Asia’s Century in the palm of its hand. Not one of the major nations in the developed world can win through unless it invests in its Universities, builds the skills of its people and then opens up global markets to permit free trade and so capitalise on the ability for the developing world to get richer as quickly as possible and thus afford our innovative, value-added goods and services.”
He called on the USA not to sink into one of its periodic bouts of protectionism through fears and insecurities brought on by the recession. “The world, from Beijing to Barcelona, from Baltimore to Birmingham, needs a free-trading, open America. She can rise to the challenge of an economically powerful China and India, Brazil and Middle East without putting up the tariff barriers. Innovate, innovate and innovate. And then innovate some more!” he claimed. “Taking an idea to market, making money out of invention, of both processes and objects, is what America and the European Union do really well. Now is the time to maximise those efforts and lead the world in adding value. That is how to create the wealth to generate the tax to get us out of our economic malaise.”