THE need for Liverpool to have a presence in the knowledge sector seems pretty obvious. High- value added activity like science and technology inventions will form a part of any 21st-century economy.

So it’s disheartening to hear Liverpool Science Park’s outgoing chief executive claiming that the city hardly registers in the wider world as a place to locate a knowledge business.

Dr Sarah Tasker should know. She previously ran one of the best-known science parks in the world, at Cambridge.

She argues that it’s easy enough to attract locals to Liverpool, but those from farther afield don’t take the bait, even though the science park’s facilities are as good as you will find anywhere.

Dr Tasker argues that the region needs to shift the perception that Liverpool is a place where we can all sing and dance to one where gene scientists are thriving.

Except, of course, that is wrong. Liverpool struggles to keep its gene scientists and others. Merseybio, the University of Liverpool’s bio-technology business incubator, has nurtured scientists who have developed some interesting ideas that they have gone on to commercialise in a different part of the country.

And yet, despite the difficulties in recruiting and retaining science businesses, we can’t give up. The region needs to be as economically diverse as possible. We need to balance the region’s numerous public sector and call centre jobs with as much cutting edge science as possible.

THE talk at Easter weekend was all about how the White House has urged General Motors to prepare for an orderly bankruptcy by the start of June.

That is, of course, the date that the US government has set as a deadline for the carmaker to come up with a better plan to secure its future.

The chances are this is just psychological warfare, a bit of sabre rattling to make Detroit believe Washington is going to take a tough negotiating stance.

Winding-up of General Motors has implications for the group’s operations in Europe.

The weekend also saw reports that China’s Shanghai-based SAIC could take a stake in General Motors Europe.

Imagine that. The region’s two principal car plants taken into Indian and Chinese ownership within the space of a couple of years of each other. How quickly the world is changing.

SAIC were the people who bought MG Rover’s intellectual property rights, designs, etc, and shipped Longbridge’s production machinery to China.

In the most recent decades, Ford and GM were not the most commercially-minded of firms. They stayed in Britain for many years because we were America’s ally, spoke the same language and they received huge grants. That won’t happen with China or India. They might be interested in grants, but they won’t be sentimental about an old ally. Their decisions will be much more focused on the competitiveness of locations. When it comes to decisions about where to build cars, the plant that offers the most attractive profitability will win the day. And that will be determined by textbook business decision making techniques. China’s accountants and graduate MBAs will rule the world.

Still, they can’t foul it up more than we have.