THE mayor of the Tees Valley this morning jets off on the region's first trade mission to the Far East.

Ben Houchen will have a whistlestop week, visiting Japan and South Korea, although perhaps the most important 24 hours will be those spent in Thailand, where he will be leading negotiations with the three banks which own much of the former steelworks site at Redcar.

He will be joined on the Thai leg of the trip by Steve Gibson, the chairman of Middlesbrough Football Club, and Cllr Sue Jeffrey, from Redcar & Cleveland council. Both are vice-chairs of the South Tees Development Corporation which has been charged with creating 20,000 jobs on the 4,500 steelworks site following the collapse in 2015 of the Thai company SSI.

Taking back control of the site from the banks is seen as crucial to the job creation process, with the mayor saying that more than "100 serious inquiries" have been received from investors from around the world who want to be involved in Redcar.

Mr Houchen will also be leading a delegation, including representatives from PD Ports and Bulkhaul, to Japan and South Korea to push investment opportunities. He will also be visiting the headquarters of companies like Nifco, Fujifilm, Mitsubishi, Lucite and Whessoe which already employ many hundreds in the Tees Valley.

Mr Houchen said: “The Tees Valley has always been outward-looking, making our mark on the globe with a history of discovery, industry and innovation – and we aren’t planning to stop.

“We have already seen significant investment from this part of the world and I’m set to visit a number of businesses and potential investors to discuss how their Tees Valley sites can grow. As Brexit looms next year, it’s more important than ever that we seek new opportunities across the globe.”

Closer to home, Mr Houchen suffered a blow yesterday when Andrew Lewis, who has been the first managing director of the Tees Valley Combined Authority for the last two years, was appointed as chief executive of Cheshire West and Chester Council.

Julie Gilhespie, the director of finance of the combined authority and the development corporation, is to be Interim Managing Director until a successor to Mr Lewis is appointed.

BLOB Follow Mr Houchen's travels next week in The Northern Echo