James Mills is a web developer in the North East of England and founder of Refresh Teesside »
Mike Hughes is the Head of Business for the Evening Gazette. He will be blogging on all matters of importance to Teesside businesses - and some that are just worth knowing »
Jez Davison, business writer at the Evening Gazette, is a regular blogger on all things business - particularly finance, entrepreneurship and the state of the Teesside economy » 
Karen McLauchlan is the Evening Gazette's deputy business and features editor - with special interest in all things industry, property and arts related » 
Jeremy Middleton is a venture capitalist and the co-founder of FTSE-200 company HomeServe » 
Deloitte, which has 23 offices across the UK including Newcastle, is among the country's leading professional services firms » 
ClimateNE & Climate Change Schools Project support the move to a low-carbon, resilient economy and help businesses avoid risk and realise commercial opportunities. Posts by Jen Atkinson, Krista McKinzey and Harriet Thew » I've just got back to the office after accompanying a group of North East Chamber of Commerce members with international trade interests to a meeting with the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband.
We met at Ford Manufacturing Components in Mr Miliband's South Shields constituency - one of a growing number of successful exporters in the region.
What was most striking was the enormous level of optimism shown by those present.
When Mr Miliband asked about the current state of North East business, he immediately received a unanimous, positive response.
The problems faced by many North East firms are the problems of success - companies racing to provide new plant capacity or hire new staff in order to keep pace with the level of orders coming in.
Of course, there were calls for the Government to help the region's businesses - not least by improving international transport links via our ports. But the meeting demonstrated this now represents investment in success.
It's a fantastic note to end 2007 upon - but we have every reason to hope 2008 will be even better.
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