YORK is continuing to set its sights on international business, forging links with foreign cities.

A delegation from the University of York, including business leaders has just returned from a trip to Sao Paulo in Brazil, while another delegation including City of York Council, the universities and business returned from Dijon in France.

The trips are part of efforts to promote the city on an international scale, which also include a visit from the Philippine ambassador in August who was visiting cities in the north of England with an interest to learn from tourism and heritage industries, and as a country with a growing professional services industry.

In October, it will exhibit its expertise in the heritage and conservation industry at a UK Now exhibition at the Shanghai International Industry Design Center and is continuing to explore links with Nanjing, China. It will also go on a British Council-arranged trip to Chicago on how universities and council work together on economic development, where they hope to find out more about tax-increment finance as a method of funding development.

Nicola Spence, chief executive of SCY, accompanied the University of York in its trip to Brazil, where a delegation of 19 people visited universities and research institutes in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

She said: “There are very strong similarities in medical technologies and biorenewables, particularly the role of electronics and digital technologies in developing new healthcare technology.

“We demonstrated York is an integrated city where higher education and business organisations work together to promote the city as an international centre for innovation, enterprise and collaboration.”

Representatives from Brazil and other countries are now expected to attend the Bioscience Yorkshire conference at Fera in Sand Hutton on December 5.

The delegation coincided with a visit from David Willetts, Minister of State for Universities and Science, at which Prof Brian Cantor, vice chancellor, gave a speech about the University of York’s existing links with the country.

Harriet Cross, international relations officer at the University of York, said: “We have really strong links and are showing initiative to expand these in the future. Brazil is doing really interesting work in all the areas we’re interested in and we’re one of the leaders in terms of plugging into what’s going on in Brazil.”

Different departments of the university talked to Fiocruz, one of Brazil’s main public health institutions, and research foundation Fapesp, which is contributing funding to collaborative research projects between the two countries.