Anthony Hilton: Games' golden chance for small business

One of the Government's smarter moves this week was to use the Olympics as a reason to invite the world's business leaders to London. Lancaster House has been turned into what's known as the British Business Embassy and is going to stage 14 business-to-business summits. Never has there been such an organised campaign to encourage inward investment.

But the nice bit is you don't even have to go to London. The ICT day on August 3 will put it all on the web so that upwards of 100 small businesses which can't afford to be there will be able to show what they are about and pitch for business.

I read a report that predicted Britain would launch a million new businesses between now and 2020, largely because of the internet. Encouraging though it is that the Chinese are now our third-largest inward investor, Indian-owned Jaguar Land Rover is on an expansion drive, and Japan's Hitachi is going to build a factory in the North East, it is these small ambitious businesses which are the key to future prosperity.

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