Friday Brief Intro 10/02/2023

Good afternoon and welcome to this week’s Friday Brief! The MTA has a big event coming up at the end of the month! Our Annual Dinner is being held at the Grosvenor Hotel in London, have you booked your ticket?

Fist up this week we have two upcoming events from NPL. The first event is on Battery Technology and the second on vehicle electrification. Take a look at an overview of each event in the story below, along with links to book your space.

Jack Semple, Secretary of EAMA, has penned a summary of the changes in Government departments that were announced by the Prime Minister earlier this week.  These directly affected most of the departments that businesses in the manufacturing technology sector look to on a day-to-day basis – the main exception was the Department for Education – so this is an important set of announcements;  the article below also includes an extensive commentary of these changes and the implications for members.

For the past 20 years, EPHJ has represented a unique trade show that brings together professionals in the high-precision industry: microtechnology, watchmaking, jewellery, and medical technologies. It is an international hub for technological innovations and business in the high precision sectors. Each year, companies and specialized professionals gather in Geneva, Switzerland at the world’s largest high-precision trade show. This year EPHJ will be held at the Palexpo in Geneva from June 6 to 9, 2023. Find out more details in the story below.

It has been a busy morning with the publication of the data on GDP, manufacturing output, investment and trade for the 4th quarter and, therefore, for 2022 overall.  Our economic news article this week concentrates on the manufacturing sector and GDP and we will round up the other data next week.  The UK economy just managed to avoid slipping into recession in the 2nd half of 2022 with the Q4 figure coming out at no change following the negative in Q3.

Manufacturing output fell for the 6th consecutive quarter, although the positive aspect of this is that this was only by -0.1% and, therefore, by far the smallest of these declines.  There is also some good news in that output of the capital goods industries grew in the final quarter of 2022, although the overall figures for the year show large reductions in almost every series.

Our economic news article this week also takes a look at the latest data on activity in the contract manufacturing sector from our colleagues at Qimtek.

Finally, the January edition of the MTA Business Survey is still open for your input – you can do this via the online form at www.mta.org.uk/mta-business-survey-jan23.  We are hoping to get this closed off towards the end of next week so, with thanks to those who have already replied, we hope that you can all spare a couple of minutes to let us have your input.

That’s all we have for this week’s newsletter! Thanks for keeping up to date with us and we’ll ‘see’ you again next week.

ECONOMIC NEWS

UK Manufacturing Output , December, 4th Quarter & full year 2022:  The manufacturing output data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) this morning showed no change on the November figure.  However, we prefer to concentrate on the 3-month trends, especially this time as it makes up the 4th quarter of the year. Total […]

Read more

EPHJ Geneva High Precision Show June 06-09, 2023

Come to the world of high precision!  2022 saw a strong recovery in the high-precision sectors, especially in the Swiss watch and jewellery industry, which has set new records for export sales – a development we are delighted to see. This trend had already become clear during the last EPHJ Show in June. Our subsequent […]

Read more


Government Changes in Sunak’s Shake-up

Prime minister Rishi Sunak has announced far-reaching departmental changes, including the creation of a new Department for Science, Innovation & Technology (DSIT).  DSIT is created from science and technology part of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Policy (BEIS) and from the digital element of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).   […]

Read more

NPL – Februarys MMN event

Battery Technology An overview of time and material challenges for batteries and how they are currently being met. Including work by NPL to provide traceability and confidence in these measurements. Including current research and development into improving processes. Dynamic and in-line measurement processes. Talks from the National Physical Laboratory and UK Battery Industrialisation Centre. Join […]

Read more
To top