The inward investment body for Manchester, MIDAS, has released its annual report for the year to March 2013. Of the 81 projects that the body helped to bring to life, roughly a quarter of new projects were created by companies in the creative, digital and media sectors.
European businesses brought over 40 per cent of the new projects with roughly a third from the States, 15 per cent from Asian companies and five per cent from the Middle East.
The highest-profile project of the year was arguably the Californian 3D specialist EON Reality which opened a major operation in the Sharp Project and is now the company’s European HQ with a new computer coding college alongside.
The creative and digital sectors are key targets for MIDAS along with the biomedical and life sciences sectors.
In total, MIDAS said over 3,000 new jobs were created last year with a further 1,000 jobs secured through UK relocations or ‘safeguarding’ existing jobs in the Manchester conurbation.
MIDAS chairman Michael Oglesby, said: “Although economic times remain challenging these are strong results that continue to show Manchester’s attractiveness as an investment location. Over the next 12 months MIDAS’ focus will be on identifying as many new business opportunities as possible in order to strengthen and build on the project pipeline.”
