Manufacturers 'bank' needed
A new 'manufacturing bank' needs to be set up to provide finance to cash-strapped small firms, according to an influential industry body.
The Engineering Employers' Federation (EEF) said the bank, which would be similar to the Industrial and Commercial Finance Corporation set up in 1945, could be financed by the sell-off of the government's stakes in major high street banks.
EEF regional spokesman Andrew Semple said it saw the service as boosting lending to "good, solid small manufacturing businesses" employing under 250 people or with a turnover of under 10m.
The body published a report on Wednesday, Manufacturing Our Future, which targeted the country's aerospace, energy and medical equipment industries as key growth areas.
Mr Semple said: "We need a rebalancing of the UK economy, as we come out of this recession we see the service and finance sectors taking a lesser role with manufacturing having a bigger part to play.
"Small and medium-sized manufacturing firms, of which there are hundreds in Lancashire and thousands throughout the North West, can be the lifeblood of that recovery.
"But what these small businesses need is access to long-term investment funding and we see this new initiative as a way of supplying that."
He said the EEF would now be pushing for measures suggested by its report to be taken up at European, national and regional level.
The report also suggests creating 1 billion 'prize' for creating and selling a low carbon technology, using government buying power to boost new and emerging technologies, together with a "more co-ordinated approach" through the new National Economic Council to the challenges facing the industry.
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Weather for Preston
Wednesday 23 May 2012
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