OK, here's this week's MIPIM factoid, courtesy of a seminar hosted by Advantage West Midlands in sunny Cannes today:

64% of investment projects go to just 2% of available locations.

So, let's get that straight: two-thirds of potential inward investors will end up in one of only a handful of locations. This rather potent piece of research came from speaker Peter Lemagnen, Managing Director of Oxford Intelligence, who went on to say: "If a location cannot show it has the right sort of skills at the required levels then it will not even get past go and measuring skills is a real problem."

All of which should be food for though for seminar host AWM chief exec Mick Laverty and chair Martin Reeves, chief exec of Coventry City Council. Put another way, Lemagnen is saying if your workforce doesn't have the right skillsets for potential investors you're wasting your time/money and, by extension, those providing buildings for potential occupiers will be doing the same.

So perhaps, when Messrs Laverty, Reeves and the other good folk flying the flag for the Midlands return from the south of France, we should be asking them what exactly they are doing to ensure that the region has the necessary skills to make it one of those "2% locations?".