Welcome to Friday Brief for the 10th October.
First to Glasgow, where MTA’s Paul O’Donnell shared a platform with Vince Cable and EEF CEO Terry Scuoler to debate what the Liberal Democrats could offer to manufacturing.
You can help to inspire future generations of engineers and enjoy a fun family day out as The Imagineering Fair will be returning to the Jaguar Exhibition Hall at the Ricoh Arena, Coventry, thanks to sponsors Jaguar Land Rover. Taking place on the 8th and 9th of November, it will be packed full with fantastic fun hands-on engineering and technology activities – including the MTA’s paper plane challenge - for all ages.
Details of 2015’s UK Space Conference have been released, with sponsorship and exhibition packages available for the event in Liverpool on 14th – 15th July 2015.
We also have a notice to exporters as the ECO is withdrawing paper Open General Export Licences – on the cards for several years but now a fact – and a couple of reminders that the MTA Forecasting Seminar is approaching and filling up fast – so secure your place today - and to fill in October’s Business Survey.
In our economic roundup this week we’ve got the UK manufacturing output figures. We’ve got a pretty much steady set of numbers, with the overall picture complicated by the recent re-basing and by the problems that seem to have occurred with the sample in January 2014 which has affected the annualised trend for aerospace; we don’t really believe that it is down, but even if it is, it is still at a good level. The figures relate to August which may have affected the Automotive numbers with the shutdown period – we really need another month to see if the growth has levelled off or even, perhaps fallen back slightly, but this industry also remains at or close to record levels of output.
As ever, if you have any news you would like to share with MTA members please email Ollie on olawson@mta.com or give us a ring on 020 7298 6400. Have a lovely weekend.