Train-a-lift in Canley is expanding overseas from its Coventry headquarters to meet demand for its forklift training services.

David Brown, the company's managing director, told Coventry Evening Telegraph that the company is entering the forklift training market in Cyprus.

"Health and safety is not as stringent in Cyprus as it is in the UK and there have been a lot of industrial accidents," Brown explained.

"We have been working with the Health and Safety Training Centre in Cyprus by sending out instructors over there to train workers at a port to safely use handling equipment," he said.

Brown adds that Train-a-Lift has set up a lot of practices and systems in the UK which can easily be transferred to organisations in Cyprus.

The 15-strong firm, which provides forklift training and mechanical handling equipment safety courses to about 5,000 people annually, is able to expand outside the UK thanks to the Yorkshire Bank's new business support initiative "Investing for Growth".

Martin Boag, a business partner at Yorkshire Bank's Financial Solutions Centre in Coventry, told the newspaper that "Investing for Growth" was set up for companies like Train-a-Lift. "It aims to help trading businesses invest in quality opportunities to buy or expand their premises, hire new staff and launch products."

Brown said Train-a-Lift, set up in 1977 by his uncle Jim Brown, is the only accredited training centre in Coventry.

"We're all hoping the economy will get going again and we have bought the freehold of the premises from the city council thanks to the excellent support from Yorkshire Bank, which has also given us the confidence to diversify into new markets abroad," he said.