Welcome to the Thursday Brief for 17 April 2014.
MACH 2014 by all measures was an outstanding success. During the five days of the Exhibition over 23,000 visitors attended the show; this is an increase of over 10% on MACH 2012. The final number of exhibitors was a record 612.
The atmosphere on the Exhibition floor was very encouraging. Exhibitors reported that visitors were genuinely interested in the products on display and keen to purchase. This is further evidence of the upturn in the UK’s engineering-based manufacturing sector.
Now that the MACH 2014 is over we reflect in this week’s Brief on the visit to the Exhibition by the Business Secretary Vince Cable. After receiving a briefing from leading companies in the sector the Business Secretary toured the Exhibition before delivering a speech to a large audience in the Seminar Theatre.
Released at MACH 2014 was the latest issue of Basic Facts/Key Messages. This annual publication will be posted out to members in the next few days but can also be downloaded from this week’s story.
We also have news of a special event during MACH 2014 when three generations of the Hurley family met on the PDJ Vibro stand. The business was formed 30 years ago by John Hurley.
Other news this week includes an announcement of a UKTI webinar coming up in May on winning business from government departments. There is also a request from a German machine tool manufacturer for a British distributor.
Economic news this week shows that UK manufacturing output grew by +0.8% in the latest 3 months ending February 2014 compared to the previous 3 months and by +2.7% compared to the same period a year earlier.
Finally, we have the latest manufacturing report on China. This is available to download from the Brief and includes details of recent developments in amongst other sectors the Chinese aerospace and automotive industries.
Have a good weekend.