Friday Brief 23rd Sept

Good afternoon and welcome to this week’s Friday Brief.

We start today with a reminder that our Forecast Seminar is only a few weeks away. The event will be held on 20th October 2022, at Yamazaki Mazak in Worcester. We are limited on spaces and so early booking is recommended.

Jack Semple, Secretary of EAMA, has prepared a note on the announcement by BEIS this week of support for businesses energy costs for companies; this is aimed at reducing costs for companies who have agreements signed after 1st April and who, therefore, will have seen costs increase significantly – it also applies for those on variable rates of various types.

On a similar note, firms on variable/flexible contracts will be contacted by their suppliers and invited to choose whether they wish to move to fixed contracts. This is stated in further government detail about how its Energy Bill Relief Scheme (EBRS) will work over the six months from October 1.

Prime Minister Liz Truss has agreed to a joint statement with the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, following their meeting at the UN in New York. You can find out further details on this below.

A short briefing note on visiting, working and living in the EU post-Brexit has been published this week by the House of Commons Library. You can find the link in the story below.

A reminder for importers and exporters that we held a webinar yesterday on the new Customs Declaration Service that companies will need to use going forward. The webinar looked at how to access the CDS, the new data elements your customs agent may ask for, setting up payments on CDS, and how to ensure a seamless transition. You can find the link to the recording below.

We want to take this opportunity to remind you that, as an MTA Member, you have access to the Lloyds Bank International Trade Portal, where you continue to have free and unlimited access to a wide range of trade data and information to support your business at home and overseas. If you’re involved in International Trade check out the short video below to find out more.

MTA Associate Member, Mitigo are offering advice on Cyber security with regard to emails. With business email accounts being the most common entry point for criminals and is at the root of most successful cyber-attacks there are some key steps you can take to reduce risk.

The economic headlines this week were taken with the increase in UK interest rates announced by the Bank of England on Thursday and by the Chancellors “mini-budget” today. Our publishing schedules mean that we have not covered the latter of these but we do have an article that examines the increase in interest rates and the summary of business conditions from the Bank’s Agents.

There is a range of data covered in the economic news article. At a domestic level, the latest results from the CBI survey point to a most fall in output over the past 3 months but with an acceleration in the downward trend expected for the immediate future. We get a similar picture from the flash release of the manufacturing PMI data where orders are falling sharply in the UK and the Euro-zone and even where output has improved compared to the August readings (the UK and Germany), it remains firmly in negative territory.

This links neatly into the European data for industrial production which fell sharply in July, even after being seasonally adjusted; even more worryingly, this downturn was led by the capital goods industries. The other element in this section is the latest data from the US where machine tool orders are slipping back a little from the break-neck speed that we have seen over the past 18 months or so but it would not be fair to describe this as a collapse and demand for tooling continues is steady, if unspectacular recovery.

Finally, we had hoped to complete the MTA Business Survey today but this now looks unlikely, so we have extended the deadline until Monday, If you have not already done so, please let us have your input via our website at www.mta.org.uk/mta-business-survey-aug22 – we would love to hear from you.

That’s all for this week’s Friday Brief. Have a great weekend and we’ll ‘see’ you again next Friday!

MPC RAISES UK INTEREST RATES

You will, of course, know that the Bank of England raised interest rates at its postponed September meeting on Thursday, taking the Bank Rate to 2.25%, its highest level since 2008. This had been widely expected and the only surprise was that the rate rise was not higher given that both the Federal Reserve in […]

ECONOMIC NEWS

CBI Industrial Trends Survey, September 2022: The CBI Industrial Trends Survey (ITS) results continue to show a small fall in output in the 3 months to September (in practice, given the data collection dates, this is actually June, July and August) at broadly the same pace as in the previous month. However, for the next three […]

MTA Forecast Seminar 2022

The MTA’s Annual Forecast Seminar will be held on 20th October 2022, at Yamazaki Mazak in Worcester. The event has once again been kindly sponsored by MTA Associate Member, Marsh Commercial. The programme will follow our usual structure of three presentations. Agenda 09:30 – 10:00 Registration 10:00 – 11:00 Global Macro-Economic Outlook – Ben May, […]

Energy support covers contracts agreed since April 1st

The government has given details of its energy price support package for businesses, charities and public sector organisations. An important point in the new Energy Bill Relief Scheme is that it will apply to fixed contracts agreed on or after 1 April 2022, as well as to deemed, variable and flexible tariffs and contracts. The […]

Fixed or variable energy contracts – your choice

Firms on variable/flexible contracts will be contacted by their suppliers and invited to choose whether they wish to move to fixed contracts. This is stated in further government detail about how its Energy Bill Relief Scheme (EBRS) will work over the six months from October 1. Non-domestic energy suppliers will be compensated “for the reduction […]

Joint statement from Truss and von der Leyen

Prime Minister Liz Truss has agreed to a joint statement with the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, following their meeting at the UN in New York. The brief statement condemns Russia over Ukraine and notes that the two leaders discussion UK-EU relations, energy, food security and the Northern Ireland Protocol. […]

EU visas position

A short briefing note on visiting, working and living in the EU post-Brexit has just been published by the House of Commons Library. A section on future negotiations noted that “the government says that the EU’s decision to treat British citizens in line with Schengen Borders Code provisions for Third Country Nationals is regrettable. But […]

WEBINAR RECORDING The Switch to CDS Imports: What you need to know but were afraid to ask

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. Yesterday (Thursday 22nd September), we were joined by the British Chambers of Commerce and ChamberCustoms to discuss the latest guidance, and […]

Lloyds Bank International Trade Portal

As an MTA Member, don’t forget you have access to the Lloyds Bank International Trade Portal, where you continue to have free and unlimited access to a wide range of trade data and information to support your business at home and overseas. This short video shows how you can use your existing International Trade Portal […]

An introductory guide to email account security

MTA Associate Member, Mitigo are offering advice on Cyber security with regard to emails. Your business email account is the most common entry point for criminals and is at the root of most successful cyber-attacks. It is not surprising that the most used function in a business is the one that criminals use to exploit. […]

Friday Brief