NEW CBI chief Richard Lambert says St Helens glass maker Pilkington can only benefit from its takeover by Japan's Nippon Sheet Glass. He added that foreign investment in UK companies should be welcomed. Former Financial Times editor Mr Lambert, 62, was on a fact-finding tour of Merseyside yesterday in his third week since taking the reins of the bosses' organisation from former director general, Sir Digby Jones. He canvassed the views of 25 key business leaders at an informal dinner in Liverpool's Crowne Plaza hotel on Tuesday evening and yesterday visited Pilkington and Ellesmere Port chemical giant Innospec, formerly Octel, now American owned. Nippon bought Pilkington in a £2.2bn deal last month, but Mr Lambert said UK companies should not fear foreign investment. "Pilkington should not be afraid," he told the ECHO during his meeting with senior Pilkington bosses. "The Japanese have spent an enormous amount of money on buying this company and have every intention of making it work. "The UK has benefited from foreign business in an open and free economyand foreign investors are welcome." He also said Liverpool's perception in London has changed for the better. "There have been changes over the past 20 years and a combination of leader-ship in the city and economic growth across the country is helping." Mr Lambert, who attended Tuesday's British International Motor Show launch in London's ExCel centre of Land Rover's Halewood-built Freelander 2, said it illustrated Liverpool's new standing in the business world. "It seemed to me that Land Rover made a big deal about where it was being made." He told Pilkington's worldwide building products operations and technology director, Paul McKeon, and HR director Tim Izzett: "You are very important members to us at the CBI and we are alert to your interests." They said high on their agenda was improving the quality of UK education and language skills. Mr Lambert reassured them: "Skills, training, higher education and energy security are themes we are going to be working hard at." | 
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