It’s been a busy week at the MTA and we’ve a number of exciting events to tell you about. The MTA have partnered up with the North East Automotive Alliance to bring you a one day seminar focusing on the supply chain and automation within the UK automotive sector. The event will take place at Nissan Sport and Leisure in Sunderland. The event is free to attend for Members (£95+VAT for non-members). Read more about the agenda for the day within the Brief.
MTA’s Head of External Affairs Paul O’Donnell takes a look at Philip Hammonds Budget, which was announced this past Wednesday, find out what it means for the manufacturing sector below.
Lloyds Bank are hosting a breakfast meeting at the Advanced Propulsion Centre in Warwick on 6th April. The morning will help demonstrate how low carbon propulsion and electric propulsion will create new supply chain opportunities for businesses in the coming years.
Check you are ready: three questions on winning business overseas. We are joining with UK Export Finance to ask members that compete for international contracts to consider three simple ‘yes/no’ questions. Please see the below story and take part.
We also have news of the Industry 4.0 Summit in Manchester on 4-5th April 2017, which also features the Factories of the Future Expo. – www.industry40summit.com. The event is all about the digitalisation of manufacturing & the supply chain.
Last Friday the EEF published a new report - Lifting the Lid on the Levy: Making the Apprenticeship Levy work for industry which looks at the policy and external affairs aspects to the levy as well as providing practical guidance for employers. The report along with a briefing document can be found in the below story.
There was generally positive news from the manufacturing output data for January that was published this morning, although the headlines did depend on whether you focused on monthly data (negative) or the 3-month moving averages (positive), with the very volatile pharmaceutical industry driving different trends for manufacturing overall despite only being about 8% of total manufacturing. Among the areas of most interest to MTA members, the Automotive industry continues, for now at least, to grow, setting a new record level of output in January; Aerospace may be showing signs of levelling off, but at a very high level, but there is, at last, growth in the Machinery (which is at its highest level since the end of 2014) and Metal Products industries, although the latter is mainly due to an exceptional December that may yet prove to be a flash in the pan. It is also worth noting that the data for the 4th quarter of 2016 was revised, mostly upwards, painting an overall picture of a relatively strong manufacturing sector in the UK. This week, we also take a look at the latest figures for GDP in Europe and at US data for machine tool exports/imports in 2016.
That’s all for this week, we’ll be back next Friday, have a great weekend from everyone at the MTA.
