Good morning it is Friday and that can only mean one thing, your weekly news round up from the MTA.
Great news from MACH 2016 this week, as space allocated for exhibitors, has exceeded the allocated for the Double Award Winning 2014 edition of the exhibition.
But also we once again have to make you aware that fraudulent invoices relating to the exhibition have been circulating , if you are in any doubt about the validity of any invoice you have received, contact Sherini Oliva via soliva@mta.org.uk or 0207 298 6412. If anyone has tried to contact you about this please email us so we can keep a record and follow up any suspicious activity.
The Annual General Meeting of the Manufacturing Technologies Association will be held on 2nd December 2015 at The Institute of Engineering Technology, 80 Cambridge Street, Birmingham, B1 2NP 12.00 noon for 12:30pm. Please contact Alice Smith in the MTA office to register your interest via asmith@mta.org.uk.
The Labour Party conference took place this past week in Brighton, the MTA were represented by Head of External Affairs Paul O’Donnell, who has written some impressions of the conference, which can be found below.
Nominations are now open for the Semta Skills Awards. This is the chance for companies to have their commitment to skills recognised and to celebrate the efforts of their apprentices and graduates. For details of all the categories and how to nominate, visit www.semta.org.uk/skillsawards.
And a gentle reminder that the MTA business survey is now online, so please take five minutes to fill out the data here http://www.mta.org.uk/mta-business-survey-sept15. We value the input of MTA members to what is a valuable and timely indicator of the trends for the manufacturing technology sector in the UK.
In MTA office news, we’d like to welcome two new members of our sales team; Carol Wilson, has joined as Northern Area Sales Manager and Michael Dean has joined as a Tele Sales Executive.
The latest readings from the Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) for the manufacturing sector make for some interesting reading; for the UK, although the index continues to point to only modest growth in the sector, it is at least still positive and this month saw the sub-sector trend for investment goods return to positive territory for the first time in about 6 months. In the Euro-zone, the overall index in September fell slightly compared to August, but remains a little ahead of that for the UK and this month was marked by the return of France to positive territory for the first time in 3 months.
Back in the UK, there was a large amount of data released with the publication of the National Accounts for the 2nd quarter of the year. On a quarter-to-quarter basis, there was no change from previous estimates, with the main news coming from the extensive revision to many data series which has been carried right back to 1997; this has altered the profile of the recovery of the UK economy from the recession and, as a result of being at a higher level in 2014, the annualised growth rate for the 2nd quarter of 2015 was revised down slightly. The data on investment was more positive and showed that this continues to grow at a steady rate across the economy as a whole, for manufacturing and, within that, for the Engineering and Vehicles sub-sector.
That’s all for now, we’ll be back next Friday with more news from the MTA and around the industry.