It’s looking good for Britain’s long-suffering manufacturers. Order books are strong, the global economy is picking up and the weakness of the pound is making exports more competitive. Industry is on a roll.
Well, maybe. Nobody likes to be a party pooper but we’ve been here before. Many times before, in fact. Over the past four decades there have been periods – sometimes quite lengthy periods – when it has looked as if a new dawn is breaking for manufacturing. Yet the promised renaissance has never happened.
There is no question that the latest Cips/Markit survey is strong. Rising domestic demand is prompting firms to increase output. On the basis of the findings manufacturing output could rise by 2% in the first quarter. If so, it would add about 0.2 percentage points to quarterly growth and suggest some much-needed rebalancing of the economy from consumption to production and from services to manufacturing.
