Good morning and welcome to this week’s Friday Brief.
This week’s newsletter begins at the Labour Party conference which took place in Liverpool. The MTA’s Head of External Affairs Paul O’Donnell was in attendance and you can read his take on proceedings below.
We also have a report on the MTA’s members Forum which took place yesterday at EventCity in Manchester.
Business Innovation Centre (BIC) Staffordshire has a £5,400 grant for Staffordshire businesses to help them pay for external expertise to research, develop and market a new product. To find out more about how to apply for this see the story below.
The newly formed Department for International Trade (previously UK Trade & Investment) in partnership with the Foreign & Commonwealth Office and the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) are coming together for an India-UK TECH Summit, offering UK companies the chance to capitalise on the vast opportunities presented by India-UK collaboration.
A new ‘SME Productivity Club’ has been launched by the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) further increasing its support for manufacturing businesses. The initiative will offer a range of benefits including attendance at industry-specific workshops and an opportunity to network with like-minded businesses. Find out how you can get involved within the story below.
There was good news from a couple of surveys last week with both the Bank of England’s Agents’ review of their contacts and the CBI Industrial Trends Survey showing an improvement in activity for the manufacturing sector. A special study by the Bank’s Agents’ suggested that the improvement we have seen in manufacturing exports since the referendum and the subsequent fall in the value of Sterling was more likely to be due to a period of currency weakness around the turn of the year, at least for manufacturing.
That’s all for this week we’ll be back next Friday with more industry news, until then have a great weekend from everyone at the MTA. Only enter text, no images or links
