WHEN you need keep up to date with the affairs of business and commerce in the South, you can't do better than read the Daily Echo's Business South.

Day by day we bring you the latest information about the companies, organisations and people who affect the daily working lives of everyone who looks to Hampshire and the surrounding counties as home and the source of their livelihood.

The fact that we are charged with taking such a key role in one of the most economically buoyant regions of the whole country is the reason that we take business affairs seriously.

Now our business editor Michael Ford has been named as one of the top business journalists of the year in the United Kingdom. The prestigious accolade comes from BT.

Michael Ford, pictured, has already carried off a trophy for his overseeing of the newspaper's business coverage in southern England.

The latest accolade came at a glittering gala dinner to acknowledge excellence in regional journalism, held at The Brewery in London's Chiswell Street.

Daily Echo editor Ian Murray said: "We are not surprised, but still delighted, to have this honour. "We believe our business team is the best of any newspaper in the country.''

Converted for the new archive on 25 January 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.