Deputy Prime Minister announces new jobs and investment for UK advanced engineering excellence
The Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg will today announce a series of deals by UK companies that will lead to hundreds of jobs in the engineering…
The Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg will today announce a series of deals by UK companies that will lead to hundreds of jobs in the engineering, aerospace and automotive sectors. He will give the keynote address at the British Business Embassy on advanced engineering excellence being held at Lancaster House today.
Senior representatives of major global companies such as Airbus, Bombardier, Jaguar Land Rover, JCB, McLaren Racing, Nissan, Rolls-Royce, Siemens, Atkins, GKN and Spirit AeroSystems will attend and participate in panel-led discussions about the strength of the UK as a trading partner and the investment location of choice.
The Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, said:
“The skills and expertise of British businesses are gold medal standard and highly sought after across the world.
“The UK is one of the top ten manufacturers in the world. Our manufacturing sector is a national success story and lies right at the heart of our strategy for economic recovery and growth.
“The announcements being made today will create and safeguard jobs and stimulate growth. They are a welcome boost to British business and a vote of confidence in the UK.”
The summit will explore the UK’s capability in this high growth sector and investments into the UK; how the collaboration between academia and business has helped the UK retain and build its leading edge position; supply chain excellence and British engineering.
Business Secretary Vince Cable said:
“The key to a sustainable and balanced economy is having a long-term approach to growth, investing in manufacturing technology, R&D and skills so we have the right talent to make the most of the recovery.
“Working with business, we are taking steps to strengthen the UK’s manufacturing capability, ensuring a better business environment that will address barriers to growth, encourage innovation, exports and inward investment as well as build UK supply chains.”
Today’s event is one of 17 global business summits taking place during the Games, organised by UK Trade & Investment.
UK-international business
The following companies chose to profile their international business at the British Business Embassy today.
The Get It Group LLC, of the US, working with Tbilisi Aircraft Manufacturing, based in Georgia, and MARKET-MATS, from the Ukraine, have signed an exclusivity agreement to locate their advanced manufacturing campuses in the Hereford Enterprise Zone and Model Farm Ross-on-Wye. Each of the two advanced manufacturing campuses is expected to create at least 500 high tech manufacturing jobs and once established the sites are predicted to increase local spending power by around £20 million per annum. Furthermore, each campus will have its own apprenticeship training school and at least 10% of the employees will come through the schools at any one time, providing much need employment for the young people in the region.
Airbus, the world’s leading civil aircraft manufacturer, has announced that it will be recruiting 169 apprentices and graduates as part of its 2012 Direct Entry Graduate and Apprentices Programmes in September, in addition to its recruitment of around 600 employees in the UK during 2012. This expansion is driven by Airbus’s latest aircraft developments, such as the A350 XWB and A320neo, and the increase in production due to strong global demand. In an important milestone, the first A350 XWB wing was assembled this week at the new Airbus factory in Wales, which was purpose-built to produce wings for the A350 XWB family of aircraft. To date, over 540 of these aircraft have been ordered.
Bifrangi, an Italian steel forger, is expanding its business in the UK. An investment of €50 (£39) million in a new steel forge in Lincoln will create 50 jobs and safeguard 100 jobs. The company has just received official planning permission to start the installation of the new forge in October.
Pirelli Group, a leading tyre manufacturer, has committed to the expansion of the company’s activities in the UK. The company is today announcing a £11.4m investment in research and development; creating 37 new and protecting 120 UK jobs. The development of products in Carlisle will result in a further £9m investment in new process machinery for volume production, which will secure existing direct and indirect jobs. In January 2010, Pirelli won the Innovation Award at the UK-Italy Business Awards in Milan.
GKN plc, the global engineering group headquartered in the UK, has announced investment of more than £12m to increase the capacity of its GKN Driveline (Birmingham) and GKN Land Systems (Telford) facilities that, respectively, design and manufacture products and provide services for the automotive and the agricultural, construction, mining and industrial machinery markets. GKN’s expansion reflects both the company’s confidence in the UK car manufacturing sector and the growth in its international contracts being fulfilled from the UK.
Precision Technologies Group (PCT), a leading machine tool design company, based in Lancashire, has announced the sale of two machines to a major state-owned Chinese company producing screw air compressors and refrigeration rotors in a deal worth £3.3 million. The company has also been approached by a well established central European based firm to supply several pairs of large precision rotors in a deal valued at £1 million. This project is a model of pan-European collaboration combining European compressor design and UK machining expertise. These projects and other ongoing work have resulted in the creation of two new UK-based jobs for the company.
Cella Energy, based in Harwell Oxfordshire, is an advanced materials and technologies sector company that specialises in safe, low-cost hydrogen storage technology. Through the company’s Research and Development base at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, Cella Energy is working with NASA on advanced research programmes in areas such as space satellite radiation shielding. The deal with NASA will help generate up to 25 jobs in the UK for the company. Later this year, Cella will be aiming to secure £6 million worth of investment to support ongoing projects in the UK and US.
BGS International, the Nottingham-based independent “spin out” enterprise of the British Geological Survey, which specialises in geoscience/geological surveys, has won a £97,000 tender to assist the Indian Government in designing the technical specifications and selecting contractors for a high-resolution airborne geophysical survey programme. The survey will cover India’s entire onshore and offshore territory. BGS International hopes to play a significant future role within a year or so in assisting the Geological Survey of India in implementing its airborne geophysical programme. It is expected that several further consultancy positions will be created when the larger programme is implemented.
Factfile
An infographic for this sector can be accessed here.
- The UK remains one of the world’s leading manufacturing nations and UK manufacturing output grew 3.6 per cent in real terms in 2010.
- The UK is home to major international manufacturing brands, such as BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce, Airbus, GKN, JCB, Caterpillar, Ford, BMW, Toyota, Nissan and Honda.
- Manufacturing in the UK continually reinvents itself and is successfully moving from competing on relatively low costs of doing business to competing on unique value and innovation.
- The UK has instituted a prestigious international prize to encourage engineering excellence. The Queen Elizabeth Engineering Prize - worth £1 million - is to be awarded biannually for exceptional advances in engineering. Candidates can be of any nationality.
- The UK has the largest aerospace industry in Europe and the second largest in the world (after the USA), with a 17 per cent global market share.
- UK aerospace has a turnover of £23 billion (defence - 52 per cent and civil - 48 per cent) and some £29 billion of orders were placed in 2010.
- Exports of UK aerospace products in 2010 totalled £16 billion, accounting for 70 per cent of total industry turnover.
- UK technology is in orbit around Saturn, Mars, Venus, and the Moon.
- UK automotive companies export to over 100 markets.
- 11 of the world’s volume vehicle manufacturers have a UK presence, supported by 19 of the world’s top 20 suppliers.
- 25 per cent of all Ford engines worldwide and over 50 per cent of all Ford diesel engines are made in the UK.
- Automotive exports accounted for 9.3 per cent of UK manufactured exports in 2010, and at £27.5bn were a calendar year record.
- The Motorsport sector supports 38,500 jobs.
- Two thirds of F1 teams are based in the UK - McLaren Mercedes, AT&T, Williams, Mercedes GP Petronas, Renault, Red Bull Racing, Force India, Virgin Racing and Team Lotus F1.
- The UK also has two of the most globally renowned development facilities anywhere in the world - Millbrook and MIRA.
- The UK construction equipment industry is worth an estimated US$13.5 million to the British economy, employing some 57,000 people exporting more than 75 per cent of production to more than 150 countries.
- The marine industries generate sales of £10 billion per year, including around £4 billion in exports. They contribute about £3.1 billion to GDP and employ more than 90,000 people.
- Chemicals represent one of the UK’s largest and most profitable manufacturing sectors, with an annual overseas trade surplus of over £8 billion.
- The UK chemicals industry spends more than £3.8 billion on R&D every year.
**Notes to editors
**
1. The Government’s economic policy objective is to achieve ‘strong, sustainable and balanced growth that is more evenly shared across the country and between industries.’ It set four ambitions in the ‘Plan for Growth’ (PDF 1.7MB), published at Budget 2011:
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To create the most competitive tax system in the G20
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To make the UK the best place in Europe to start, finance and grow a business
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To encourage investment and exports as a route to a more balanced economy
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To create a more educated workforce that is the most flexible in Europe.
Work is underway across Government to achieve these ambitions, including progress on more than 250 measures as part of the Growth Review. Developing an Industrial Strategy gives new impetus to this work by providing businesses, investors and the public with more clarity about the long-term direction in which the Government wants the economy to travel.
- UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) is the Government Department that helps UK-based companies succeed in the global economy. We also help overseas companies bring their high quality investment to the UK’s economy - acknowledged as Europe’s best place from which to succeed in global business. UKTI offers expertise and contacts through its extensive network of specialists in the UK, and in British embassies and other diplomatic offices around the world. We provide companies with the tools they require to be competitive on the world stage. For more information on UKTI, visit www.ukti.gov.uk or visit the online newsroom at www.ukti.gov.uk/media.
Notes to Editors
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