国际英语新闻:Interview: Northern Powerhouse "top priority" for UK gov't to tackle regional inequalitie

LONDON, Jan. 6 (Xinhua) -- The north of England will thrive in the decades ahead if it gets the kind of support London and the south east has long enjoyed, a British expert has said, calling on the British government to take the Northern Powerhouse project as a "top priority".

Britain is among the most regionally unequal countries with its size and level of development, Luke Raikes, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) North told Xinhua in a recent interview via email.

But at the same time, there is huge potential in the regions outside of London and the south east, especially in the north of England, said Raikes, co-author of the report "Divided and connected: Regional inequalities in the North, the UK and the developed world -- State of the North 2019".

Noting that the North's economy is larger than most European Union countries, he urged the British government to take the Northern Powerhouse project as a "top priority".

The Northern Powerhouse project is an initiative launched by former Chancellor George Osborne and economist Jim O'Neill in 2014 to boost economic growth in the north of England.

The theory goes that key cities in northern England (Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, Hull and Newcastle) are close enough to each other to be united into a single market similar in size to that of the London metropolitan area. It would mean Britain becoming home to two globally competitive city-based commercial hubs.

"It is a region that has strong capabilities in energy, digital, health innovation and advanced manufacturing technologies, as well as the business services, logistics and education sectors that support these," said the expert based in Manchester, a heart city of the northern England.

Asserting that the North is twice as vulnerable to Brexit as London, he explained that it is "a strong trading region and has long supply chains that could be ruptured with knock-on impacts on many of the North's services sectors and the wider economy."

Shortly after Prime Minister Boris Johnson's landslide victory in the recent general election, he told newly-elected MPs of his plans to direct billions of dollars of investment to the North.

Highlighting the region's huge potentials, Raikes said now there is an opportunity to look to the long-term sustainability of Britain's economy and the public finances, and invest in the North.

"Government investment in the North is welcome, but it is not a substitute for a healthy relationship with our closest trading partners," he said.

"The North has always been a strong trading region with links across the world, and now these links will become incredibly important," he said.

Foreign companies, including those from China, are already involved in the Northern Powerhouse project, Raikes noted.

"The new flights between Manchester Airport and China are incredibly valuable, as are relationships between China and the North's businesses, universities and its tourism industry," he added.

The Northern Powerhouse is considered as a popular destination for international investment, with nearly 40,000 new jobs created between April 2015 and March 2018. Analysts predict further potential opportunities for foreign investment if renewed interest in the project is to materialize.

But challenges also remain ahead for Johnson's government. After all, the north of England has been in economic decline relative to the south since the late 19th century.

Many towns in the region have still not recovered from deindustrialization of the 1980s. Their labor markets lag behind the rest of the country, with poor employment rates and lower wages, according to British weekly magazine the Economist.

The IPPR is a think tank based in London, with offices in Britain's major cities such as Newcastle, Manchester and Edinburgh.