Good morning and welcome to this week’s Friday Brief.
It’s all change at the top this week as new MTA President Marcus Burton replaced Geoff Bryant as the industry’s leader for the next two years. The transfer took place at the AGM, held in Westminster on Tuesday and is the start of a two year term.
As well as a round-up of the year, the AGM heard from two experts in their respective fields. Professor Sam Turner, CTO of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, talked about the Made Smarter programme which is aiming to turn the North West of England on to Industrial Digitalisation. Then, Professor Anand Menon Director of the Centre for the UK in a Changing Europe at Kings College London shared his thoughts on the latest developments in respect of Brexit.
After the AGM members made their way over to the House of Commons for a Parliamentary Reception. As luck would have it, it was one of the most dramatic days in Parliament for years with the Government suffering three defeats on Brexit during the time we were there. Speaking at the meeting, Marcus Burton made it clear that manufacturing industry regards a ‘No Deal’ outcome to Brexit as damaging and that Government should do everything possible to avoid it. Business Minister Richard Harrington MP and Shadow Business Minister Chi Onwurah MP made time in their incredibly tight schedules that day to speak.
Keeping Government up to date with what is happening in the industry is one of the most important things the MTA can do to maintain the sectors visibility. The Business Survey is a big part of this and November’s is now open for completion here www.mta.org.uk/mta-business-survey-nov18
Over in Brussels this week CECIMO announced the creation of a new high-level Committee to deal with Additive Manufacturing. The move formalises CECIMO’s position as the European Association for the whole value chain of the AM Industry in Europe. The Committee will be chaired by Stewart Lane of Renishaw. More below.
Looking ahead to 2019, the MTA’s centenary year, we have news of the after dinner entertainment with the confirmation that Marcus Brigstock will be joining us on the 28th of February at the Park Plaza in London – booking details are below.
If your interested in setting up in India then you may want to consider a new development in Karnataka where the go ahead has just been given for a new Integrated Machine Tools Park. If it might be one for you contact the MTA for an introduction to our friends at the Indian Machine Tool Association who are sponsoring the initiative.
If your planning a visit to intec, the largest trade fair in the eastern part of Germany (Leipzig 5-8 Feb), in the new year then click on the story below for a free entry ticket.
The biggest economic news this week was the publication of the PMI figures at its start which attracted some muted headlines despite a significant improvement in the UK, although as this only took us back to around the September figure, these were, perhaps, justified. In Europe the picture was weaker with Italy remaining in negative territory and both Germany and France seeing long-term low levels (although both of these were above 50). The rest of the world was a mixed picture with some improvements and some lower readings and with no obvious regional pattern to the data. With the UK data for manufacturing output in October being published on Monday - we will report on this next week - it will be interesting to see how this matches up with the PMI trends. Also this week, we have the data exchange from the recent CECIMO General Assembly meeting available for members and there is also the latest report for the Contract Price Adjustment Service which we subscribe to on behalf of members - please get in touch if you would like either of these reports.
