Manufacturing News – Late November 2024
Estimated reading time 3 minutes
UK manufacturers are less than one month away (15 December) from enjoying the benefits of the UK joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), one of the largest free trade areas in the world which will account for 15% of global GDP, or £12tn, once the UK joins.
The agreement will span 12 economies: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam and now the UK. Seven other countries have also already applied to join, including most recently Indonesia – the largest economy in Southeast Asia and home to almost 280 million consumers in 2023.
A smaller workforce helped UK manufacturers produce goods and materials worth £150.9bn in the third quarter of 2024, according to an analysis of ONS data by FourJaw Manufacturing Analytics. This was £1.9bn more than in Q3 2023, an increase of 1.2%.
Make UK has launched the Industrial Strategy Skills Commission to find a solution to the growing skills deficit in manufacturing and engineering across the country.
Make UK has brought together some of the most qualified experts in education, training and industry to diagnose the wide scale problems in the skills system and create an effective talent pathway into manufacturing.
Manufacturer Rotork has seen sales increase in all three of its divisions as it looks forward to “another year of progress”.
The FTSE-250 group, which specialises in making valves, operates in the oil and gas, water and power, and chemical industries around the world. The Bath-headquartered company employs 3,500 people across 15 manufacturing sites.
The market for additive manufacturing (AM) hardware, materials and parts in the aerospace sector is forecast to be worth $20.5bn by 2033.
The research carried out by VoxelMatters reveals that AM products in aerospace (including hardware, materials, and parts) generated a total value of $1.58bn in 2023, representing a year-on-year growth of 23%. This market is expected to expand over the next ten years, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 29%.
The Trade Remedies Authority (TRA) has proposed that a new anti-dumping duty of up to 83.5% be applied to imports of excavators from China to the UK. The TRA says that its anti-dumping proposals could benefit UK excavator producers by up to £3.4m per year.
The proposed duty would vary from 33.03% for Chinese producers that took part in the investigation to 83.5% for those that did not participate.
