Good morning and welcome to this week’s edition of the Friday Brief.
Firstly we have the pleasure of announcing two new members of the MTA this week. PP Electrical Systems based in Walsall and Cannon Shelley who are based in Cambridgeshire. Join us in extending a warm MTA welcome to them both.
Earlier this week the MTA and Cranfield University teamed up to host a conference on UK Industrial Surface Engineering Present and Future. The event took place on Tuesday at Cranfield University’s Vincent Building. Over 120 delegates joined twelve UK based surface engineering firms who exhibited at the event.
Did your company enter the Manufacturing Industry Awards? You can see the shortlists below. The winners will be announced at the MTA’s Annual Dinner which will take place at the ICC in Birmingham on 12th March 2015.
Jesus College, Cambridge are hosting a three day Technology and Innovation Management course Tuesday 24 to Thursday 26 March 2015. Earlybird tickets are available until Tuesday 24th February, full details of the conference programme can be found in the Friday Brief.
We would like to offer our congratulations to MTA President and MD of Group Rhodes Mark Ridgway OBE DL who won the regional Manufacturing Champion Award at EEF/Aldermore Future Manufacturing Awards. Also in the news, the MTA features in this week’s edition of the New Statesman supplement which has an interview with MTA CEO James Selka.
Developers behind the £1bn Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon have confirmed the majority of the largest turbine components will be made in Britain. This announcement should be worth around £300m to British manufacturing.
And finally, in economic news the main headlines come from the relatively good news about the gradual improvement in GDP growth in Europe and, in particular, the strong end to 2014 in Germany. There are clearly many hurdles yet to cross but let’s hope that this ends up being a turning point in the economic recovery in the euro-zone. The news from the Bank of England’s Agents’ is a little mixed, but on the whole I think we can score it as “positive” and the CBI seem to share this view as they have just upgraded their forecast for the UK economy in 2015 and are quite bullish about investment as well, despite the issues in the North Sea from lower oil prices.
That’s it for this week, until next Friday enjoy your weekend from everyone at the MTA.