Friday Brief 24/11/2023 W47

Good afternoon and welcome to this week’s Friday Brief! Can you believe it’s a month until Christmas Eve! It’s time to start planning those festive traditions!

To begin the newsletter today we would like to announce that Tony Bowkett, CEO of Nikken, has officially taken office as the President of the Manufacturing Technologies Association (MTA), having served as Acting President for the previous six months. Find out more in the story below.

Important announcements on manufacturing from government this week, pre-cursors to the promised “Advanced Manufacturing Plan”, expected as part of the autumn statement next week. Jack Semple from EAMA has gathered some key points for us so make sure to take a look in the story to get all the details.

The Machinery Regulation (2023/1230/EU) is published but only comes into force in the EU on January 01, 2027. Until then, the Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC continues to apply. So UK exporters have until the start of 2027 to ensure they meet the new rules. HMG seems reluctant to comment much on EU regulations at the moment but UK is not currently planning to adopt the new Machinery Regulations. More information can be found below.

After announcing changes to the post-Brexit system, the UK’s chemical regulation scheme is poised to deviate from the EU’s, according to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). Post-Brexit, the UK introduced its independent regulatory framework for chemicals, named UK REACH, initially drawing extensively from the prior EU regime. Check out more below.

The MTA’s TDI Challenge exists to help teachers and lecturers to promote the great work of their D&T and Engineering students and to celebrate the creativity and innovation. Our competition is open to all young people aged 14-19, students can use their Design and Technology coursework from school/college. Find out the details in the story.

The big news this week was, of course, the Autumn Statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on Wednesday. Manufacturing featured heavily – indeed, it probably got more mentions than in any fiscal event for a long time – and we have an extensive note covering both the key announcements for our sector and for the economy as a whole. There were 4 key announcements for us including making the full capital expensing permanent, £4.5 billion to support 8 key areas of manufacturing (although the speech appeared to spend all of this on just 4), the extension of the Made Smarter Scheme across the whole of England and money for a pilot scheme aimed at getting more apprentices into engineering.

The economic news article this week covers the latest results from the CBI Industrial Trends Survey (pretty gloomy), the flash manufacturing PMIs for November (UK better but still significantly negative) and the initial estimates of UK productivity for the 3^rd quarter (very limited because of data problems and nothing beyond whole economy results).

We have the announcement of the World Cutting Tool Conference which is being held in Osaka (Japan) next May – a link to the website for more details is included in the item below.

Finally on the economic front, we have the presentations from the recent meeting of the CELIMO Tooling Group; this includes both general information on the EU economy and more details for the countries who were represented at the meeting.

Thank you for keeping up to date with us today! We hope you have a great weekend and look forward to ‘seeing’ you again next week!

WORLD CUTTING TOOL CONFERENCE 2024

Our colleagues at the Japan Cutting & Wear-resistant Tool Association (JTA) have launched the programme and bookings for the World Cutting Tool Conference which they are hosting from 21st to 24th May in Osaka. The World Cutting Tool Conference is held every three years, although this edition has been delayed due to the impact of […]

CELIMO TOOLING GROUP – PRESENTATIONS

CELIMO is a group of European Associations representing importers and distributors across the manufacturing technology industries. At a recent meeting of its Tooling Group there were a series of presentations focusing on this part of our sector. Following a general economic overview of the European economy (mainly the EU as a block), which is, of […]

ECONOMIC NEWS

CBI Industrial Trends Survey, November* 2023: The latest results from the CBI Industrial Trends Survey (ITS) shows that manufacturing output volumes fell in the 3 months to November* and was at its most negative since the August* dated survey. Output is expected to fall again in the coming 3 months, although at a slightly slower […]

AUTUMN STATEMENT 2023 – A GUIDE TO HIGHLIGHTS

With thanks to Jack Semple, Secretary of EAMA (of which MTA is a member) for providing the bulk of this note, here are some of the highlights of this week’s Autumn Statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. We will start with those that are of most relevance to the engineering industries and then cover […]

New MTA President officially takes office

Tony Bowkett, CEO of Nikken, has officially taken office as the President of the Manufacturing Technologies Association (MTA), having served as Acting President for the previous six months. Tony succeeded outgoing MTA President Dave Burley in May this year but had to wait until the association’s Annual General Meeting in November, which took place on […]

Technology Design & Innovation Challenge

Post Brexit Chemical Regulations

The UK is set to diverge from the EU’s chemical regulation scheme as the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has announced changes to the post-Brexit system. Following Brexit, the UK established its own regulatory framework, UK REACH, initially modelled after the EU system, while in Northern Ireland, EU REACH continues under the […]

Passive divergence: New Machinery Regulation 2023/1230/EU

£4.5 billion over five years

Important announcements on manufacturing from government this week, pre-cursors to the promised “Advanced Manufacturing Plan”, expected as part of the autumn statement next week. Key points: £4.5 billion over five years to boost investment in eight sub-sectors “of economic strategic importance”. These are listed as “auto; aero; life sciences; clean energy (carbon capture, utilisation and […]

Friday Brief