UK Trade deficit widens
It is widely reported that the UK trade deficit unexpectedly widened as exports fell and imports surged during December.
This is despite the weak pound that should help our exports.
What surprises me the most, is that the Government and the press are “surprised” by this.
For many years now, successive Governments have done nothing to support or incentivise manufacturing, relying on the city of London earnings to balance the books. When that sector turned out to be a “house of cards” everything collapsed. A broader manufacturing base could have been the tonic that we need at this time, but instead we continue blindly to export manufacturing jobs, with Corus Teeside and Cadbury’s being just two of many over the past two years.
It’s time that we had politicians with experience of the real world of business and manufacturing in power, rather than a stream of graduates going from university, to research, to political activism and then on to parliament without any experience of the real world.
Manufacturing and Engineering seem to have become “second rate” activities in modern Britain, and until we recognise their importance to our economy provide the climate for them to grow we are condemned to be a high unemployment, low growth second rate economy.
Posted: March 10th, 2010 under Steel News.
Comments: 2
Comments
Comment from anon
Time: March 20, 2010, 8:09 pm
Once we were the workshop of the world, now our manufacturing industry is the laughing stock of Europe, there are no real manufacturers left to make the goods that we need to export ourselves out of trouble.
Since before the Thatcher years the fertile ground of manufacturing has been polluted by legislation vigorously enforced, and unfair taxation, who wants to employ an expensive workforce to manufacture goods into an unstable market place.
Do we have any manufacturing direction left in the UK?
Comment from carbon steel
Time: March 23, 2010, 10:34 pm
We seem to be on track to have the same problem over here in the US. Over taxation of business, expensive labor cost due to unions, and environmental regulations are making manufacturing less and less viable. More and more companies are having to close up shop every year due to this work being shifted to countries like China. It may take decades, but I think that things are going to get worse for all modern countries until the standards of living in these other countries equalizes out with ours.
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