About Us

INVEST Essex - Essex's Inward Investment Team

Essex is already home to over 55,000 businesses providing a vast range of job opportunities for our local population and is a major economic driver in the East of England. The county is home to a wide array of internationally renowned companies, many of which are highly R&D (research and development) intensive, such as e2v technologies, BAE Systems, Ford, Glaxo SmithKline, Nortel, Raytheon, Keymed, etc.

Essex is a growing county with a thriving business community offering great opportunities to local, national and international businesses.

Essex County Council (ECC) has commissioned the Essex Development & Regeneration Agency (ExDRA) to undertake a programme of work to promote inward investment into Essex as a major contribution to the county’s economic development and job creation aspirations. This includes marketing inward investment opportunities to high value businesses in sectors that employ medium/high skills, handling investment enquiries, providing aftercare, and working to retain existing businesses in Essex.

Our delivery team is now in place in place, and we are already making good progress in a number of areas.

We have already agreed a county wide approach for inward investment partner engagement (locally and regionally) with the local authorities and other partners. This also sets out the agreed protocols for handling inward investment enquiries, and we are working closely with East of England International (EEI) on foreign inward investment enquiries and an investor development programme for existing investors.

Through our marketing development programme we are actively engaging with all the local authorities and Essex sub-regional partners to understand their inward investment priorities and aspirations.

We have an active list of enquiries at various stages of development, for example: supporting a Chinese software to establish a local office and to engage with potential clients in Essex; a software and computer services company locating into the Basildon area; an optical technology venture locating into Southend; and an overseas pharmaceutical company being introduced to potential premises in the west of the county.

Any of the team will be happy to explain more about this exciting area of work.