Will the world recovery reach UK manufacturing?

Julia Moore, GTMA Director, calls on the Government to act now if the UK is to benefit from the forecast upturn.

Despite recent positive indicators regarding world manufacturing, for the UK and for our TDM industry in particular, there remain many serious causes for concern.

As an increasing proportion of the automotive industry moves to low-wage economies - current examples cite one motor manufacturer moving 20 billion parts from USA shores to China.

Surely we need to ask the question: "Who will be able to buy the cars?".

And automotive is just one example of a raft of industries that are leaving our shores.

Employment has plummeted and continues to fall in the manufacturing sector.

The latest survey from Amicus shows that 53% of chief executives in the UK's top 100 firms expect to make redundancies in 2004.

This comes on top of the recent GMB union warning that manufacturing is in "crisis" - more than 73,000 jobs having been lost in 2003 alone.

Yet the Government still refuses to acknowledge the seriousness of the situation, which is being compounded by the rapid exodus of the service sector, which is following hard on the heels of manufacturing.

These losses directly affect our economy and our prosperity.

We must remember that manufacturers invent and innovate; manufacturing contributes to our tax revenues and stimulates and increases our standard of living.

If the Government does not support our manufacturing base we will see reduced economic growth and a decline in our standards of living now and in the future.

The prospect of a world recovery in manufacturing represents a golden opportunity, which our Government must help us seize if UK manufacturing is to obtain its share of the market.

Our overseas competitors will certainly grasp the moment to invest in technology, to up-skill, to broaden their markets.

We must do the same or suffer the consequences.

If we do nothing, the outlook is bleak indeed for employment.

So who then will be able to buy all the manufactured goods flooding our markets.

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