Good morning and welcome to the first Friday Brief of the decade, we hope you all have had a happy, healthy, Christmas and New Year, ready for an exciting 2020 ahead.
We start the year with good news, MTA President Marcus Burton has been awarded an MBE for services to export and inward investment in the New Year Honours list. Marcus is Non-Executive Director for Yamazaki Mazak UK Ltd and also and Chairman of the Economic Committee of CECIMO. We’d like to extend our congratulations to Marcus and you can find out more in the story below.
The MTA Annual Dinner 2020 will be held on the 6th February 2020 at the Royal Lancaster London, so not long left to get your tickets for the event. If you’re interested in attending please head over to our events page to find out more details on this unmissable night https://www.mta.org.uk/event/mta-annual-dinner-2020.
The MTA Business Survey for December is launching today - this is one of our slightly longer quarterly surveys, but we hope that this won’t put you off and that as many MTA members as possible will take a few moments to help us build a picture of our industry as we move into what will be a momentous year for the UK economy. The on-line form available at www.mta.org.uk/mta-business-survey-dec19.
The UK-Africa Investment Summit (UK-AIS) Manufacturing Event is a unique opportunity for UK companies to learn more of the possibilities of investing in manufacturing operations in Africa and to raise African governments’ awareness of UK investor needs. To find out how you can attend check out the story below.
Staying with export opportunities, DIT is hosting an Eastern Europe and Central Asia Network UK Roadshow 28 – 31 January 2019. The roadshow will provide UK businesses with insight, information and guidance on exporting to or investing in the EECAN. The event will highlight the EECAN as the first-choice partner for international trade and investment for the UK businesses. See within the Brief for more details.
Two model apprentices, who won big at the University of Sheffield AMRC Training Centre’s annual awards, have returned from the trip of a lifetime touring Boeing’s state-of-the-art factories in Portland and Seattle. Mary Stickland and Craig Horton, who are both from Rotherham, earned the opportunity to spend eight days in Oregon and Washington by winning the Siddall Achievement Award in March 2019., discover more in the story below.
The PMI figures that greeted the new year were anything but happy for most places. The UK and the Euro-zone both saw the readings lower than in November with the investment and intermediate goods industries leading the downturn. Interestingly, the rest of Europe generally saw improvements in the PMI reading, but only Hungary is above the crucial 50 level. The Asian picture is mixed with improvements in South Korea and Taiwan moving them back into positive territory but the Americas was a similar story of a weakening picture in all 4 countries, although only Mexico is below 50.
