Manufacturing takes a turn for better, but prognosis still grim

Published on Thursday 3 September 2009 21:10

SCOTLAND'S under-pressure manufacturers are seeing a glimmer of an upturn, but are urging the Westminster government and the Bank of England to understand the continuing difficulties they are facing.

Scottish Engineering's trends survey of the industry for the three months to September has recorded the most encouraging figures for some time.

But the major indicators remain negative and a team of senior executives from member companies recently met Prime Minister Gordon Brown in Fife to discuss ongoing problems caused by the recession.

Peter Hughes, the trade body's chief executive, said they were encouraged by Brown's "positive attitude" towards the engineering manufacturing sector. A meeting is planned later this month with the Secretary of State for Scotland, Jim Murphy, and a lunch has been organised next month with Charles Bean, the deputy governor of the Bank of England, who also sits on the monetary policy committee.

"At these meetings we ensure that these senior influential figures are kept fully appraised of the importance of manufacturing engineering to the economy and hear directly from our members," said Hughes, who's statement confirmed a report in The Scotsman yesterday that Scottish Engineering is now operating independently of EEF, formerly the Engineering Employers Federation.

Scottish Engineering is now lobbying Westminster and Brussels directly and is producing its own guidebook for members. The organisation's September quarterly review shows that order intake levels are at -28 (19 per cent up, 34 per cent the same, 47 per cent down) while in the second quarter they stood at -45.

Hughes was cautiously optimistic about prospects. "We know how difficult it is to predict the end of a recession and while some of our indicators have improved for two quarters, there is not enough evidence for us to say that it is over. I believe, however that it may well be bottoming out.

"In particular the electronic sector is reporting a positive improvement in export orders and while overall order intake within that sector remains negative the results are the best we have seen for more than nine months."

He said the sector feeling most pain is in metal manufacturing.