London mayor to attend ‘world’s leading real estate event’ on the French Riviera

London Mayor Sadiq Khan

Mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan. Photograph: City Hall

Sir Sadiq Khan is set to attend the “world’s leading real estate event” on the French Riviera.

According to the BBC, that the mayor will, in March, join the annual MIPIM conference at Cannes.

Le Marché International des Professionnels de l’immobilier (MIPIM), the International Market for Real Estate Professionals, is a property and real estate trade show.

Previous mayors Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone were both regular attendees at the four-day event, but Mayor Khan has never gone before – and has instead tended to send one of his deputies.

The conference offers the chance to network with some of the world’s biggest property developers and to discuss investment opportunities in London and other global cities.

City Hall said it had no comment on the BBC’s report.

Mayor Khan joining the event for the first time could however be read as a demonstration of his commitment to the Labour government’s agenda of “kickstarting economic growth”, with ministers placing a strong focus on house-building to unlock that growth.

As of the end of last year, the London mayor was thought to have made 18 foreign trips as mayor.

With his trip to Poland this week accounted for, travelling to Cannes would mark his twentieth official trip abroad.

Mayor Khan has pointed out that his predecessor, Mayor Boris Johnson, made 37 international visits in total.

Last year’s MIPIM conference was attended by Hackney’s former mayor Jules Pipe, who is London’s deputy mayor for planning and regeneration, where he was gifted three dinners worth almost £550.

According to his register of gifts and hospitality, the deputy mayor was served two dinners on consecutive nights which were together worth £243, hosted by the business lobbying group BusinessLDN.

He participated in a Q&A session at the first of those dinners and gave a speech at the second.

The following night, he spoke at a third dinner hosted by the Berkeley Group, a major British developer. The meal was served at La Villa Archange – a two-Michelin star restaurant – and was worth about £300.

Speaking at the conference in 2014, the then-Mayor of London Mr Johnson joked that MIPIM could in fact be short for ‘May I push you in the Med?’ or ‘Meet me in the pool in a minute?’, given the amount of lobbying that takes place there.

He declared however that, to his mind, it stands for ‘Making important property investments for millions of Londoners on modest incomes’.

MIPIM’s organisers boast that the event is attended each year by over 20,000 delegates from 90 countries, who include among them investors managing a total of €4 trillion in assets.

Tickets to attend the event start at 870 euros, with more premium levels of access offered at prices of up to €3,190.

This year’s conference will be opened by Mario Draghi, the former Italian prime minister and European Central Bank president.

Speakers from local government in the UK will include Hounslow Council’s Labour leader Shantanu Rajawat, Liverpool City Council’s Labour leader Liam Robinson, and Belfast City Council’s chief executive, John Walsh.

All press and public relations for MIPIM is being handled by Shoreditch-based PR agency, ING Media.