Good morning and welcome to this week's Friday Brief.
This week has seen the MTA hosting a pavilion at MAKTEK Eurasia in Istanbul, the largest manufacturing technology show for Turkey and the Central Asian region. The Show has been busy and the MTA has been building links with organisations in that country, which bodes well for future business opportunities there. You can read more below.
We've also visted Scarborough Engineering Week, the annual festival of engineering staged in Yorkshire. You can a read a report of events below, as well as a little about one of the latest of the University Technical Colleges, which has opened in the town. Staying with education and development theres a chance to get involved, through Primary Engineer, in inspiring youngsters to follow in your footsteps into a career in engineering.
The MTA has been honoured with an award from the the Ministry of Defence for our particapation in the Armed Forces Covenant scheme, especailly around the very successful Forces presence at MACH 2016.
Two final economic reminders: Firstly the 20th of October, that's next Thursday, sees the MTA's Annual Forecast Seminar, held this year at Renishaw in Gloucestershire. The event is essential to understanding what's going on in the market and you can book your place here http://www.mta.org.uk/whats-new/events/forecasting-seminar . The second is a final reminder to complete the September Business Survey, which you can access through the story below.
The Economic data this week for manufacturing/industrial output for the UK and Europe respectively shows a modest improvement in August, with the Capital Goods sector outperforming total industry in both cases. In the UK, both the Automotive and Aerospace industries remain close to their record high levels of output, although with signs that the rate of growth may be slowing. There was also some positive data on profitability in the UK manufacturing sector from the ONS this week and signs that there might just be a change in sentiment in the market for manufacturing technology equipment in the USA where orders increased in August ahead of IMTS when a poor month might have been expected – this will be a trend to watch in the coming months.
Have a good weekend.
