Good morning and welcome to this week’s Friday Brief.
Given the spread of the Coronavirus, the MTA has decided that, in order to minimise the risks to visitors and exhibitors and to provide the best possible platform for both exhibitors and visitors, the event will now take place 25-28 January 2021. The event will still be held, in the same Halls, at the NEC.
Many of you will have already received a call from the MTA team regarding the exhibition and we’re working hard to ensure everyone is fully aware of the situation and the plans for the rescheduled exhibition going forward. We’d like to thank everyone for their patience and understanding during this challenging time.
The Coronavirus has had significant impacts in Westminster too, with the Budget being dominated by measures to support the economy through what looks increasingly likely to be a sharp but hopefully short-lived downturn. We’ve got more details from the MTA’s Paul O’Donnell and EAMA’s Jack Semple below.
One big infrastructure spending commitment that is going ahead is HS2 and they have reached out the MTA to encourage our members to access the forthcoming procurement opportunities. More details on how you can get involved in the Brief.
The MTA BSi Standards Update Booklet is now available and provides the following information, the BSI committees the MTA attends, standards under revision in each committee and the development stage of each standard under revision. For more details on this see the story below and the updated booklet.
The Good Business Charter is a simple accreditation which organisations in the UK can sign up to in recognition of responsible business practices. It measures behaviour over 10 components, to find out more and to sign up your business please see the story below.
UKLA Good practice guide for managing metalworking fluids published in 2018. As the name suggests this guide deals mostly with the management of the MWFs and only briefly touches on other issues such as machine operation and design and LEV. The ongoing HSE research programme is also considering whether more advice can be provided on controls for MWF mist reduction and extraction. Find out more within the Brief.
This week we look at the industrial output and GDP data for both the UK and in Europe. In the 3 months to January, manufacturing output in the UK fell quite sharply but the industrial picture is mixed with sharp falls for the Automotive and Machinery industries but a modest improvement for Aerospace and the Metal Products industry also slightly better. In Europe, January saw a significant upswing compared to December 2019 but this was only reversing the declines that were seen in the previous two months. At the whole economy level, the UK economy was flat in both the month and in the 3 months up to January 2020; most of this data refers to the time before the Coronavirus and with the weakness of November 2019 dropping out of the equation next month, we are likely to see better figures for February before things take a turn for the worse in data terms. Growth in Europe was limited in the final quarter of 2019 with France and Italy seeing a contraction and Germany only flat. Finally, this week, we have the latest data on the US market which shows a weak start to 2020, especially for manufacturing technology, with a more modest reduction for cutting tools.
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.
