Many kinds of manufacturing have reached a ‘tipping point’ in terms of whether they should be located overseas or in the country where the goods are consumed, say the report’s authors.
They believe that large-scale global trends - such as rising oil costs and regulations on emissions - combined with new production technologies will make global manufacturing uneconomic and unattractive to many businesses.
The UK’s estimated 2,500 mid-sized manufacturing companies - and, critically, the support they receive from government and the finance industry - will be crucial to capitalising on these trends, argue the authors, as they have the agility, ambition and a “closeness to their customer base” best suited for a return to localised production and distribution.
But the authors warn that these mid-sized companies are “under-reported and undervalued”- overlooked by government, lenders and the media. They question whether the UK is ready to respond to the challenges and opportunities this changing context requires.
The report Making at home, owning abroad was written by Dr Finbarr Livesey, a lecturer in Public Policy at Cambridge, in conjunction with Julian Thompson, Director of Enterprise at the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) and supported by Lloyds banking group.
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Image: A drive travels down the manufacturing line
Credit: Robert Scoble
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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‘Mid-sized’ firms key to UK manufacturing
30 April 2013
A reduction in the trade deficit by £20bn and an estimated 200,000 UK-based jobs could be created over the next ten years, as mid-sized manufacturing firms end the outsourcing of production to Asia in response to changing business dynamics, according to a report published this week.