Product category:
Manufacturing industry news
News Release from: Manufacturing Technologies Association
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 23 October 2007
Slowing in growth of machine tool sales
29% growth in the UK market for machine tools in 2006 is predicted to slow to 6%, before accelerating again during 2008, according to The Manufacturing Technologies Association.
The Manufacturing Technologies Association predicted almost 10% growth in the machine tool sector during 2008 at its annual Forecasting Seminar at the NEC in Birmingham Following spectacular growth of 29% in the UK market for machine tools in 2006, growth this year is predicted to slow to 6%, before accelerating again during 2008
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 10 Mar 2008 at 8.00am (UK)
Related stories
Interest rate hold is helpful, says MTA
MTA, the UK Manufacturing Technologies trade association, has welcomed the interest rate hold but believes the Bank of England must lower interest rates further still to properly support manufacturing
MTA members participate in Thai seminar
Rhodes, Addison McKee, Cinetic-Landis and Renishaw are all participating in an MTA Technical Seminar - Modern Automotive Technologies from the UK - being held during Thai Metalex.
The prospects for the global economy remain positive, despite the events in the financial sector on either side of the Atlantic in recent weeks.
The forecasts, prepared for the MTA by Oxford Economics, do not show a major impact on the engineering sector as a result of these issues.
Indeed, there is even a small upside risk to the forecasts as a result of the cuts in interest rates (or at least the non-implementation of increases which had been expected) which could stimulate investment in some areas! The other major macro-economic development highlighted was the dramatic turnaround in the German economy over the past couple of years.
Further reading
Challenging the preconceptions about engineering
The UK's Manufacturing Technologies Association along with many organisations takes a 'hands-on' approach in getting young people to think about how things are made and work.
MTA wins three top trade association awards
At the Trade Association Forum Best Practice Awards ceremony the UK's Manufacturing Technologies Association won three awards and was a finalist in a fourth category.
MTA says 75 firms have 'new at MACH' products
The UK's Manufacturing Technologies Association says that 75 companies have now announced 'New at MACH' products or services that will be on display at MACH 2006.
As recently as 2005, the economy was only growing at 1% per annum, but in 2006, this tripled and, even after slowing a little this year as VAT rates were increased, the German economy is expected to grow at 2.6% in 2007.
A major factor behind this has been lower than (euro-zone) average wage growth and high than average productivity growth which has created an "internal devaluation" for Germany vis-andagrave;-vis the rest of the euro-zone.
For the UK economy, there will inevitably be some impact on growth given the size and importance of the financial services sector, but this is expected to be concentrated in the City of London where bonuses are likely to be significantly lower this year.
Although it has not been expanding rapidly, the manufacturing sector has seen some growth and this has been led by the investment goods sector; in turn, this growth has been led by the machinery and metal products sectors, both of which are important users of machine tools.
The prospects for investment spending by the end-user sectors look positive, with capacity utilisation continuing to rise, increasing reports of plant capacity as a constraint on output and investment intentions indicators from a range of surveys all pointing to an improvement in spending in the next 12 months.
Having set out the background, both for the global economy and for the key end-user sectors, the seminar concluded with the forecasts for the machine tool sector in the UK which were presented by the MTA's Statistician, Geoff Noon.
The forecast is complicated by a weak set of numbers for sales/deliveries in the 2nd quarter of 2006 (believed to be related to supply issues in a booming global market), but given the positive external factors and a good level of orders throughout 2007, we are confident that growth of +5.7% can be achieved in 2007, accelerating to +9.3% in 2008.
Forecasts for exports of machine tool from the UK were also provided.
Western Europe is the largest market area and this is likely to expand, along with deliveries to Central and Eastern Europe; in contrast, because of changes in the structure of UK machine tool companies, exports to China and the USA are forecast to decline slightly.
• Manufacturing Technologies Association: contact details and other news
• Email this article to a colleague
• Register for the free Manufacturingtalk email newsletter
• Manufacturingtalk Home Page
Search the Pro-Talk network of sites
