MOVE up the value chain and keep ahead of the curve. I am sure regular readers of this newspaper will recognise the source of these two gems of management speak. It was Business Secretary Lord Mandelson, who graced the region with a visit last weekend.

They summed up his solution for Teesside’s beleaguered chemical industry. I am sure he will forgive the 34,000 workers who depend on that sector for their livelihoods if they didn’t doff their caps while whispering: “If only everything in life was so simple.”

The irony is that Lord Mandelson is right.

Every employer, every professional body, every operative knows that the chemical industry must adapt to survive, that the key to sustainable, profitable companies lies in adopting new technologies and developing products that will meet the needs of a worldwide low-emission, low-carbon economy.

Those plans are at the heart of the strategic plan being prepared by the European Centre of Manufacturing Excellence, so the industry can, with some justification, say it is acutely conscious of where it needs to be in matters of curves and chains. What it also needs to know is where it stands in the here and now.

Old perceptions of the North-East die hard.

For many outside the area – and quite a few within, I’m afraid to say – the region is synonymous with Newcastle-Tyneside.

Unsurprisingly, I have a different perspective.

I sense that the region’s centre of gravity, certainly in terms of economic potential, has changed. The fight to retain jobs and grow the regional economy has moved to one of the few remaining places where we still actually make things; things that in turn make money for the national economy. Welcome to Teesside, the new front line.

That front line has taken a battering this year. In the process sector, we have lost Dow and Croda and question marks of varying size hang over at least four other producers.

The future of Corus and another 3,000 jobs remains unresolved.

This is happening in an area still recovering from the last, brutal shake-out of its staple industries. If we experience similar job losses again, you can kiss the painful recovery of the past 30 years goodbye and settle down to another three decades in which unemployment becomes an institution in many communities. The effect will be disastrous.

But despite these perilously high stakes, the Government’s response to the crisis in chemicals and Corus is that recovery plans must be led by the private sector, that intervention and subsidy are not the solutions.

Neither the motor industry or banks have been given this kind of sink-or-swim message.

Our own industries deserve equitable treatment.

The chemical industry needs support and investment to see it through the current crisis and to ready it for the challenges the lowcarbon economy presents – and it estimates that £48m is needed to provide cash-flow support and to upgrade infrastructure.

In a couple of weeks time, Lord Mandelson will address the Chemical Industries Association.

It would be very helpful to everyone if he seized the moment – as the management- speak manual might put it – and signalled that the Government intended to pursue a more hands-on, supportive approach.

At present, his party enjoys the kind of dominance in our area that ICI once enjoyed in the industrial world. Perhaps, like ICI, if it fails the people of Teesside on this issue, it may find, as with ICI, nothing lasts for ever.