Midland health and safety training provider Woodland Grange has pioneered a new British health and safety qualification in Thailand - and is in line to present the course in seven more international markets, including Brazil and China.
The move has helped to reinforce record levels of overseas business for the Leamington Spa based organisation, which is part of EEF West Midlands.
CMTC, its international and in-company division, has developed the Thai initiative as a pilot for a prominent international engineering company. During 2008 it will be extending the training to the company's activities in Russia, France, Romania, Brazil and China.
Among other new overseas business, CMTC has clinched a contract to train executives from Lloyd's Register in the United States. This is particularly significant because it saw the client opt for a British trainer and qualification, rather than a domestic one.
The two contracts also provide further evidence of the growing acknowledgment of the quality of British health and safety products.
CMTC's work is based on international versions of two established British qualifications, the NEBOSH International General Certificate and the IOSH Managing Safely international version.
CMTC has been particularly prominent in providing training in markets which have under-developed health and safety cultures.
Two years ago it established a training base in Brunei for Eastern Pacific markets, from which it is providing training for delegates from a range of different countries.
The company has also been active in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
In Kazakhstan, it regularly delivers training for the country's booming petrochemical and gas industries, and it has also presented training in Poland and Russia. It was the first UK trainer to undertake a complete interpretation of all course material into a foreign language, when it developed a Russian translation of the NEBOSH International General Certificate.
CMTC manager Darby Allan, who also presents some of the courses, said: "In several markets we feel that we are not only training people to help their specific companies, but actually helping to expose industry in general to a revolution in health and safety practice.
"It is often a major challenge to develop training that will actually work, but that makes it all the more rewarding."
