[ED: We take no position on the politics of the Brexit debate, just the Knowledge Economy.]
Such a nation should take responsibility for its own future and become a role model for the rest of the world. Already two of our universities are the best in the world. We have a high tech sector and are the site of the world’s premier financial centre. We must build on this comparative advantage in the knowledge economy. Surely we must become an innovative hub, a centre and driver of the world’s technological advance. …
This does not mean a nation of computer scientists. Innovation and creativity can be applied to the leading edges of any industry and it is these leading edges that Britain is in a position to capture. In a truly competitive, enterprise environment no one can know precisely what those industries are. Our success will depend on our ability to capture the most valuable parts of increasingly complex supply chains.
An example of this is the iPhone. iPhones are manufactured in China but the value is added by the research and marketing being done in the US which reaps the bigger advantage. Consequently, China sees only 6% of the value created.
As I said, we do not know precisely where these areas will be but it will always be important. Interestingly, New Zealand, which produces only 3% of the world’s milk, controls 30% of the value of the global dairy market. It is not just high tech areas that will be dependent upon this knowledge economy. It is even in traditional areas such as agriculture.
Taiwan has developed a system of growing vegetables in a water solution rather than soil using a patent formula of antagonist micro-organisms which boost production with low nitrate levels. It wants to develop this in York and should be encouraged to do so. Rest