Festival, being held at Exhibition Centre Liverpool, started on June 12 and runs until June 28. It is expected to attracted 27,000 visitors and more than 150 delegations. Tony McDonough reports

Health and life sciences, creative industries and sport, culture and travel are the topics at the top of the agenda in the final week of Liverpool’s International Business Festival.

The festival, being held at Exhibition Centre Liverpool, started on June 12 and runs until June 28. It is expected to attracted 27,000 visitors and more than 150 delegations from across the world.

Festival held in 2014 and 2016 generated an extra £600m in new business for UK firms and organisers say their target this year is to push that total past the £1bn mark.

In the second week the focus was on future transport, manufacturing and shipping and logistics with the International Maritime Forum the leading event on the final day of the week.

Mersey Maritime chief executive Chris Shirling-Rooke told an international audience how the maritime sector in Liverpool city region would create 4,000 new jobs over the next five years, adding to the 28,000 people already employed.

The forum also hosted a discussion entitled Women in Maritime and a new push by Maritime UK to increase the numbers of women in the sector.

The third and final week gets under way on Tuesday with a focus on the global healthcare sector with global spending likely to top $(US)8 trillion by 2020 key questions being pondered include ‘how can your business help pioneer new approaches to global challenges like infectious disease or an ageing population?’.

On Wednesday the spotlight will shift on to the creative industries. In Mersyside, the creative and digital sector is estimated to be worth around £1bn a year. And this keeps on growing.

Across the world the sector employs almost 30m people and generates annual revenues of $(US)2 trillion. Experts and delegates will look at how the sector will develop to influence our working and personal lives.

Sport, culture and travel will dominate the agenda on the final day of the festival. This will be of special interest to the Liverpool city region which has seen its visitor economy grow massively over the past decade to be worth more than £4bn a year.

Events on Thursday will look at how the sport, culture and travel sectors can turn around a place’s fortunes.

Click here for more information on the full festival programme