FOR seven years, the Hay Festival has exported its unique brand of festivals overseas.

It hosts annual events in Europe and Latin America and it is now working with new partners to develop projects in Africa and Lebanon.

“What we are most thrilled about is that this is a series of international projects run out of Hay by people all local to Hay,” said director Peter Florence. “In these hard times, there’s clearly a vital international market for imagination, intellectual enquiry and cultural adventure.

“We are thrilled and honoured to have received the Queen’s Medal for International Trade for our work in Europe and Hispano- America. As we establish new festivals this year in Nairobi and Beirut, it’s wonderful to recognise the global aspirations of the market town of Hay-on-Wye.

“We are dealing in the currency of stories and ideas, and these values are holding up.”

Hay Festival Cartagena was launched in 2006 to reach new audiences, embrace Latin American writing and celebrate the written word abroad with 20 events and 40 writers, including Vikram Seth and Javier Cercas.

Four festivals later, it has become an annual celebration of literature, music, film and the meeting of cultures, offering a selection of local, national and international speakers.

In 2007 Hay Festival devised a project for Bogotá World Book Capital called Bogotá39, a selection of the best 39 Latin American authors under 40, culminating in four days of talks.

The Hay Festival is working on two new international ventures including Beirut39, to coincide with Beirut’s year as World Book Capital, where a panel of judges will pick 39 Arabic writers under the age of 40 to participate in events across the city in March 2010.

Hay Festival is also working with Storymoja in Kenya to create a festival that will run this August.

Meanwhile, ETL Systems has achieved the rare accolade of winning the Queen’s Award for the second time.

The award recognises outstanding growth in international trade and a continued sales increase, which has averaged 40 per cent a year since 2005.

The company’s 50-strong team is based in Madley, at a purpose-built factory, where they design and manufacture specialist satellite handling equipment.

This is used by broadcasters and satellite operators to handle multiple satellite signals and main customers include the BBC, Eutelsat and CNN.

Managing director Ian Hilditch said: “Winning the Queen’s Award for the second time is a huge honour and has been made possible by the continued dedication of all our staff.

“As a result, ETL Systems has quickly become one of the leading worldwide suppliers to broadcasters as well as to military and government customers.

“The Queen’s Award reflects the success of our new range of leading edge products, such as the Enigma Switch matrix, which are driving sales to all parts of the world.”

He added that the company looked forward to maintaining this growth as new markets required even greater satellite signal routing.