Good afternoon and welcome to this week’s Friday Brief! It’s great to see the industry’s buzz again after a gorgeous summer! We’re excited for a busy autumn full of success.

The MTA and EIA together with the Department for International Trade (DIT) are hosting a virtual engineering and manufacturing mission to India in on from 27 – 29 September 2022. Building on the successful engagement last year. Check out what’s happening in the story below.

Don’t forget to book your place at the MTA’s Forecast Seminar next month. You can find the booking link along with what will be included on the day in the story.

intec, International Trade Fair for Machine Tools, Manufacturing and Automation is a regular event in the European trade fair calendar. Technology leaders, innovation drivers, manufacturers, distribution and service partners as well as service providers and specialists will be presenting innovative and precision technology designed to meet the day-to-day challenges of manufacturing. Find out more below.

HMRC is replacing the Customs Handling of Import and Export Freight (CHIEF) system with the Customs Declaration Service, representing a significant upgrade by providing businesses with a more-user friendly, streamlined system that offer greater functionality. From 1st October 2022 CHIEF will close for import declarations. More details can be found in the story.

The clock is ticking, on 1st October CHIEF switches off for import declarations and you’ll want to be confident that your company is ready for these changes to avoid potential delays with your movements. Information on the webinar can be seen below.

We are pleased to announce that MACH Ballot 1 for companies over 200m² has now taken place. There were 14 new companies have reserved space for the exhibition, and you can see how ballot 1 has effected the layout by visiting the Live Floorplan on the MACH website. Please read the story below to see if the Ballot is something for you.

Ahead of the announcement on Monday of our new Prime Minister, Jack Semple, Secretary of EAMA has taken a look at the issues facing the new incumbent of 10 Downing Street – widely assumed to be Liz Truss, hence the tone of the article.

The major data release this week was the Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) data for manufacturing around the world.  It is safe to say that August was not a great month with most countries seeing a fall in their PMI compared to July and a number, including the UK, moving into negative territory or slipping further below the crucial 50 level.  Output and orders were generally declining in the face of a range of issues that were added to in the case of the UK by port congestion and Brexit complications.

This trend is also reflected in the economic news article about the European Commission’s Economic Sentiment Index (ESI) which fell again in the latest report, led down by lower confidence in the industry sector.  Most countries now have the overall ESI reading below the long-run average level and few of them saw an improvement on the July reading – Spain was the most significant exception to this with a slightly higher (but still negative) ESI reading.

Finally, the August edition of the MTA Business Survey is underway and it includes some extra questions about members experiences around energy costs.  You can find the questionnaire at www.mta.org.uk/mta-business-survey-aug22 – please take a couple of minutes to participate if you can;  while we would, obviously, hope that you can answer all of the questions, if there are some you would prefer not to respond to, any input is welcomed to help us build the picture of the current state of the manufacturing technology sector.

That concludes the first Friday Brief of September 2022! Have an amazing weekend and we’ll ‘see’ you again next week!