Friday Brief (19/01/2024) W3

Good afternoon and welcome to this week’s Friday Brief! We are excited to bring you some great stories today!

To kick things off we would like to invite you to a webinar taking place on the 30^th Jan! The MTA and Irwin Mitchell will host a one-hour Q&A webinar to cover the main green legal issues and what you should do, for reporting and reducing liabilities. Free for MTA members and anyone representing a manufacturing company. Register here – https://www.mta.org.uk/event/green-legislation-qa-fast-changing-laws-your-reporting-obligations-and-liabilities/

Another one of our associate members is hosting a webinar on the 31^st January. ForrestBrown are collaborating with Scintilla to guide you through the process of protecting and generating value from your IP. Scintilla, UK patent attorneys, will share how to successfully take the first steps towards benefiting from your IP through obtaining a patent. ForrestBrown’s tax advisors will then explain how a patent can reduce your corporation tax rate to 10% and how to successfully combine the relief with your R&D claim whilst mitigating risk in a changing landscape for innovation tax. Register Here – https://www.mta.org.uk/event/unlocking-the-full-value-of-your-ip-how-to-generate-value-from-your-patents-across-the-innovation-lifecycle/

HSE is inspecting manufacturing businesses that use metalworking fluids in their machining processes until March. Their Ebulletin contains facts, resources and guidance to help you make sure you are adequately protecting workers. Check out the stories below.

CECIMO, in collaboration with 22 European business has sent a joint letter to the heads of the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers, calling on the EU and Mercosur leaders to rapidly conclude the trade negotiations on the remaining open points. Find out more and read the letter in their story.

The government has issued a series of reminders about upcoming deadlines traders need to know about, as well as opportunities to share your views on recent trade deals. The story below gives you an update on CDS GVMS, Migration deadline, 999L phase-out and CPTPP consultation. Make sure to find out more in the story and click through to the articles.

The Innovate UK Smart grant has focused scope and eligibility criteria to support SMEs and their partners in developing genuinely new innovations with significant potential for rapid economic return to the UK. The application process reflects the importance of obtaining economic benefits from public funding, and the potential for successful commercialisation, growth, and exports. Applications open: Thursday 18 January 2024 and close on Wednesday 24 April 2024. Find out more below.

A new British Standard provides a dynamic approach to your maintenance regime: BS 14200:2023 Maintenance of Machinery – Specification. It looks at additional factors that influence the type and rate of deterioration of equipment. See below for details.

The UK government has launched the Critical Imports and Supply Chains Strategy to boost supply chain resilience for critical goods entering the country. The rise in disruptions to the global supply chains following the pandemic, wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, the Red Sea and Panama Canal have also led many shippers to re-route goods movements, adding significant time and costs to shipments. Read further information in the story.

Make UK had an Affiliate Partner meeting on the 17th Jan and the story below tells you a few details about what was discussed. You can also view a list of links on the topics that were spoken about.

Have you booked your spot on a table at this years MTA’s Annual Dinner? The evening will be hosted by voice of The National Lottery and Strictly Come Dancing, Alan Dedicoat and feature entertainment from the hilarious Gary Delaney. Don’t miss out on attending one of our biggest events of the year, the best opportunity to network with all our members! Book your ticket now through the link in the story!

There have been a couple of announcements from the Department for Business & Trade (DBT) this week; these are an update on business visitor movement to the UK and a new strategy to deal with critical imports and supply chain strategy. Find out more about both of these in our article below.

We have two economic news articles this week – one for UK news and the other covering Europe and the USA. The domestic piece looks at the manufacturing output and monthly GDP data that was published a week ago and continues to paint a picture of a broadly stagnant economy and industrial sector; we also take a look at the end of year Contract Manufacturing Index published by Qimtek which showed an improvement in activity.

The international article covers the industrial production data for November that was published this week by Eurostat and which was equally gloomy, and the latest data on the US market for machine tools and cutting tools which continue on their divergent trends.

Finally, both the MTA Business Survey and the EIA Quarterly Survey will be closing next week but there is still time for you to let us have your input via the secure website at www.mta.org.uk/mta-business-survey-dec23 and https://www.mta.org.uk/eia-quarterly-survey-4th-quarter-2023 respectively.

That concludes the Friday Brief for this week! We hope you all have great weekends! We’ll be back with more stories next Friday!

ECONOMIC NEWS – INTERNATIONAL

European Industrial Production, November 2023: The data for Europe released by Eurostat has Industrial Production (IP) as the top-level aggregate; while the largest part of this is the manufacturing sector, it also includes energy and utilities (but not construction) and the breakdown of the total by sector misses out having a figure for manufacturing. Total […]

ECONOMIC NEWS – UK

UK Manufacturing Output , November 2023: The Office for National Statistics (ONS) released the latest data on manufacturing output at the end of last week, just too late for our publishing schedules. Although the headline shows month-on-month growth of +0.4% in November, the negative values in the two previous months mean that manufacturing output over […]

Notifications from DBT

Critical Imports & Supply Chain Strategy: The government in the form of the Department for Business & Trade (DBT) published its strategy on critical imports and supply chains strategy; this sets out how they will work with business and international partners across 5 priorities: The strategy is the first of its kind and builds on […]

MTA Annual Dinner

Have you booked your tickets? The MTA’s Annual Dinner will return to the VOX during MACH 2024 on Thursday 18th April! The evening will be hosted by voice of The National Lottery and Strictly Come Dancing, Alan Dedicoat and feature entertainment from the hilarious Gary Delaney. You won’t want to miss out on a fabulous […]

Make UK – Affiliate Partner Update 17th Jan Follow Up

Make UK is pleased to announce the 26th September as National Manufacturing Day in 2024. Encourage your network of manufacturers to sign up and pledge support here – Employer Form | NMD 2024 (nationalmanufacturingday.org). Attached is a template invitation for your use. The Department for Business & Trade have been in touch and are looking […]

Government launches Critical Imports and Supply Chain Strategy to boost UK resilience

New standard emphasizes dynamic machinery maintenance

Want to take machinery maintenance to the next level? A new British Standard provides a dynamic approach to your maintenance regime: BS 14200:2023 Maintenance of Machinery – Specification. It looks at additional factors that influence the type and rate of deterioration of equipment. It also institutes processes to identify decay and adjusts the maintenance frequency […]

Innovate UK Smart grants: January 2024

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, is investing up to £25 million in the best game-changing and world-leading ideas, designed for swift, successful commercialisation. The Innovate UK Smart grant has focused scope and eligibility criteria to support SMEs and their partners in developing genuinely new innovations with significant potential for rapid economic return […]

REMINDER OF NEW EXPORT PROCEDURES CDS, GVMS, 99L PL

The government has issued a series of reminders about upcoming deadlines traders need to know about, as well as opportunities to share your views on recent trade deals. CDS GVMS update HMRC has recently issued a pair of updates on the ongoing migration to the Customs Declaration Service (CDS). In the first update, HMRC advised […]

CECIMO: Joint statement in support of the EU-MERCOSUR agreement

I would like to inform you that CECIMO, in collaboration with 22 European business has sent a joint letter to the heads of the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers, calling on the EU and Mercosur leaders to rapidly conclude the trade negotiations on the remaining open points. Having the EU-Mercosur […]

HSE Ebulletin Stories

Metalworking fluids: new quiz, webinar and guidance Issued: 11 January 2024 HSE is inspecting manufacturing businesses that use metalworking fluids in their machining processes until March. Their Ebulletin contains facts, resources and guidance to help you make sure you are adequately protecting workers. Quiz – test your knowledge Exposure to metalworking fluids can cause harm […]

Friday Brief