Boosting numbers of foreign students is a glaring omission from our industrial strategy

The government's 10-year industrial strategy is serious, and has serious money behind it, including £4.3bn for advanced manufacturing.

- Tim Leunig

It has been rightly welcomed, even if it has failed to generate much fanfare.

But there is one big missed opportunity: universities. They are correctly given prominence as a foundation for other industries' success. But universities matter in their own right. They export more than £21bn a year, making them the UK's fourth largest export industry. Despite this, the strategy does not define them as a core sector and says next to nothing about how to increase our university exports.

Although most people think of exports as goods sent abroad, the definition of an export is money flowing into the UK to pay for something. An international student paying to study here is an export.