Good morning and welcome to this week’s Friday Brief.
Calling all MACH 2016 exhibitors, we’re looking for stories for our regular bulletins we put out to promote the show. The bulletin is sent to approximately 16,000 people - visitors, exhibitors, key decisions makers and buyers. Our extensive mailing list targets the people you want to reach, to ensure you have a successful 5 days at MACH 2016. So if you have a MACH news story please get in touch with Tom Lane (tlane@mta.org.uk) to book your spot.
Looking to advertise your apprenticeships to a wider market? www.notgoingtouni.co.uk is the UK's leading website for school & college leavers looking at the alternatives to traditional university such as Apprenticeships, Sponsored Degrees, Traineeships, College Courses and entry level jobs. Please see the story below for more details.
UKTI is reviewing the ways in which it helps UK businesses to export through events (trade fairs, seminars, roadshows, missions). They would like you to fill out a short questionnaire to help them with their research. Details below.
The MTA has been working with some of our partners in the Engineering and Machinery Alliance and the Institute for Manufacturing at Cambridge University to develop a National Strategy for the Machinery and Component Supply Chain sector. It is a collaborative programme, focused on innovation, growth and productivity and we will be holding two events next month which will be great opportunity to get involved:
- Thursday 2 July 16.00 – 19.00 at IMechE in London
- Tuesday 7 July 16.00 - 19.00 at Delcam, Small Heath Business Park, Birmingham
The main economic story this week is some gently encouraging news on industrial output in Europe; there were modest improvements overall, but the best part of the news is that on most trends, it is the Capital Goods sector which is leading the way again - this sub-sector includes most of the customers for manufacturing technology equipment so this is clearly good news for the parts of our sector that are driven by customers activity levels (cutting tools, etc.), but is also positive for those areas which are dependent on investment. UK trade in the Engineering industries was up in the first quarter of 2015, but with imports growing more strongly than exports, the trade deficit in this area widened. The US machine tool and cutting tool market is showing some signs of having a less good year than they did in 2014, but the trends are far from being a disaster and their commentators remain positive about achieving similar levels for business as in the two previous years.
That’s all for this week, have a great weekend.