Email Archive: Friday thoughts – MADE IN UK campaign

From: Guoyu Du
Sent: 28 April 2017 11:50
To: CBBC All
Subject: Friday thoughts – MADE IN UK campaign

Dear all,

I’d like to share with you one of my recent experimental projects. Upon request from the organiser of China Chongqing International Sourcing Fair (CCISF), this week I’ve created an online virtual exhibition centre for British exporters using the name of MADE IN UK, which can be found on madeinuk.org . Featured functions include:

– Comprehensive UK suppliers list with thousands of British companies in 46 categories, collected by web spider scripts from crown copyrights materials;
– 100% bilingual architecture to ensure business information delivered to audience in both country, on a single website;
– Mobile friendly web design;
– Integrated business matchmaking function , contact UK companies in one click, submit potential export opportunity in seconds;
– And more functions to be added.

I expect to complete English content and company logos synchronising by next weekend, and put on translated Chinese version of each company by mid May. The website will be part of the UK pavilion as a virtual exhibition for UK brands during the CCISF, I think it also has the potential to become a great tool for boosting UK brands awareness and a platform for business matchmaking and export wins generation. Every company profile will have bilingual version so Chinese stakeholders will be able to search and browse. They are welcome to use the advanced search function on site as well.

The demo of beta version is on madeinuk.org/business with unfinished Chinese version available. Thank you.

Best regards,

Guoyu Du
Chief Representative, Chongqing
China-Britain Business Council Chongqing

From:Ben Metcalf
Time:2017 May 8 (Mon) 12:41
To:Guoyu Du
Subject:Re: Friday thoughts – MADE IN UK campaign

this is excellent Guoyu! All these companies are looking to export to China?Ben

On 08/05/2017 13:04, Guoyu Du wrote:
Hi Ben,

These companies on the list are willing to export overseas but China might not be their first priority for some of them. In fact the architecture of website MADE in UK can easily expand to provide German, French, Italian editions etc but I’ll focus on China market to help generate export wins.

There are some hidden functions inside, for example, the website can provide basic business registration information check service. Within one click you will get the business registration details and annual report of the company. The full site is expected to be released during the CCISF exhibition this year. Thank you.

Best regards,

Guoyu Du

From:Ben Metcalf
Time:2017 May 8 (Mon) 14:38
To:Guoyu Du
Subject:Re: Friday thoughts – MADE IN UK campaign

Excellent thanks, i can use this to forward to the shopping centres that are consistantly requesting intro to British brands to perfect! Is this an official **** thing or just a project you doing in your spare time?

On 09/05/2017 17:39, Guoyu Du wrote:
Hi Ben,

Thanks for sharing! I have an alpha version of Chinese language catalog focusing on food & drink, consumer products etc in old MySQL database format. I’m going to merging the data with this Made in UK site within this month so it will be more comprehensive and the Chinese stakeholders could have more options.

Also last night I’ve enabled the “one-click business check” function. Visitors will be able to access the key financial information and directors information in just one click. This is to help importers better understand their counterparts in the UK.

I asked support from ****** but they are not quite interested in this, on the other hand my colleagues on the ground from retail team have found this idea useful. I personally think generally it’s good for daily work at operational level both in the UK and in China.

And one small question, what would be your first perception of difference between “made in Britain” and “made in UK”, just the Northern Ireland difference? And do you prefer to say “made in UK” or “made in the UK”? 🙂

Thank you and best regards,

Guoyu Du

Ben Metcalf
Mon 15/05/2017 14:53
Hi Guoyu,

Really great job here! Surprised that ****** were not so keen, I certainly will find this useful!

For names its a little tricky…
– it should be UK as that also includes Northern Ireland however people from Northern Ireland are still ‘British’
– I think “Made in Britain” sounds better than “Made in UK” but “UK” is more politically correct.
– A good example is the WeChat groups… I use “British in CQ” but Kevin uses “UK PPL in Chengdu”
– It should be “Made in UK” or “Made in ‘the’ United Kingdom”

Hope that’s clear.
Regards, Ben