THE Conservative Party will today be urged to place greater importance on business issues by the head of the CBI.

Digby Jones, the organisation's director general, is due to make the comments at the party's annual conference in Blackpool.

"There was a time in this country when every businessman was assumed to be a card-carrying member of the Conservative Party, but that caricature is out of date," Mr Jones will say.

"Business must reach out to all sections of the community, creating wealth on a socially-inclusive basis but political parties must put business issues further up their agendas too. And then walk the walk, and not just seek to impress with fine words.''

He will tell the conference: ''The party that shows it has truly understood the realities of a brutally competitive globalised economy will be welcomed by a business community that is currently more politically sceptical than it has been for a long time.''

The present government was the most economically successful Labour administration in history, he will say.

''The challenge for all political parties is to prove they can use that platform to deliver an environment that enables business to compete effectively around the world.

''And that should be the crucial issue for this conference. You must show business how your stewardship of the economy will deliver competitiveness together with productive, efficient public services."