British manufacturers urge UK government to implement industrial plan

The UK’s manufacturing association, EEF, has called the British government to progress faster with its industrial strategy.

The £725mn (US$980mn) strategy was introduced by Greg Clark, the UK’s Business Secretary, in the white paper of autumn 2017.

The EEF has deemed the introduction of the strategy an “urgent task”, suggesting that manufacturing goals need to be outlined.

According to the association, between 2000 and 2007 British manufacturing productivity growth was averaging 4.7%.

The productivity average, or output per hour worked, has since declined to only 1% over the past decade.

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“We’ve known about the productivity problem for some time, with various attempts made to try to fix it across the whole economy,” the Guardian reported Lee Hopely, Chief Economist at the EEF, stating.

“Productivity growth matters for wages and international competitiveness yet 10 years on from the start of the financial crisis these attempts have not delivered a major shift and we need to tackle the challenge in a different way.”

“Manufacturing offers a good area to get gains on productivity growth. The industrial strategy council should now be created urgently and put to task to identify how the overall strategy can improve productivity in those industrial sectors where it has lagged.”