Hello and greetings from the MTA Team as we bring you another edition of our Friday Brief.
We have a number of updates this week on the theme of Brexit, with specific articles on the requirements that will be in place for business travel between the UK and the EU after the end of the transition period, how intellectual property rules will work and some webinars from HMRC on completing import documentation that will be especially relevant to companies who have only dealt with goods from the EU and who will face a complete change in import procedures.
There is also a general article that covers new guidance and updates on a range of Brexit related topics which are also worth checking out. More loosely connected to Brexit is the forthcoming UK Export Finance Forum which takes place early next month and we have details of how you can take part in that.
The importance of mental health is something that has risen up the business agenda during the Coronavirus crisis and following on from our introduction feature last week (see https://www.mta.org.uk/resources/your-mental-wellbeing) we have news this week of a webinar on dealing with work-related stress that is being organised by the Safety and Health in Engineering Partnership.
MTA member, GOM UK, has announced their Metal Forming Knowledge Days which will bring together their knowledge and expertise in optical metrology over three days towards the end of this month. Also on the theme of helping businesses improve their processes, the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland is running an event to show you manufacturing companies can benefit by integrating lightweight machining techniques into manufacturing processes.
There is another wide range of economic news this week, led this time by data on Europe. The latest figures for manufacturing output show a levelling off compared to August, although the capital goods industries did manage modest growth in September. We also take a look at the first update of the GDP figures that were initially published by Eurostat two weeks ago.
Nearer to home, we finish our round-up of the data that came with the 3rd quarter GDP data last week by summarising the latest trends for productivity and foreign trade (exports and imports). The economic news section then concludes with the latest data from the USA where there are signs that the downturn may be a levelling off in the rolling 12-month trend as business started to recover in September.
Finally this week, we have a short piece on the recent annual lecture from the Campaign for Science and Engineering (CaSE) and include a link to both a summary and the on-line recording of the event.
With that, we will be back next Friday with some more news from, about and for the manufacturing technology industry. Have a good weekend and stay safe.
