Motor manufacturing emerges as a bright spot in the economy
Motor manufacturing – once a byword for Britain’s industrial decline and inefficiency – has emerged as a bright spot in the economy.
The buoyant fortunes of car makers producing some of the UK’s best-loved marques are giving a fillip to hopes for rebalancing UK plc away from financial engineering and towards the real kind.
The latest good cheer came from Jaguar Land Rover, where revenues soared by a 40.9 per cent to 3.76bn in the final three months of 2011.
In the driving seat: Range Rover's Evoque is in demand in emerging markets
Its strong performance lightened the
gloom a day after credit rating agency Moody’s warned it may strip
Britain of its ‘Triple-A’ status. Profits at JLR rose to a record 559m
over the same period.
The
company created more than 3,000 new jobs to produce its new Evoque
model, which costs between 28,000 and 40,000 excluding extras. The
Evoque, pictured above, which has been in demand in emerging markets such as
China and India, has been a major factor in pushing up sales.
Despite
being owned by Indian conglomerate Tata, and run by a German chief
executive, Dr Ralph Speth, a spokesman for JLR said the company is
completely committed to the UK. ‘Made in Britain is still a valuable
selling point,’ she said.
JLR
is not an isolated case. Although much of Britain’s car industry is now
under foreign ownership, it is producing millions in vital export
income and creating thousands of highly skilled jobs for this country.
Motor
manufacturing is performing well both at the everyday and the luxury
end of the market. McLaren’s new supercar, the MP4-12C costing around
170,000 went into production last year at the company’s state of the
art technology centre.
At the other end of the scale, the Nissan factory in Sunderland turned out record production numbers in 2011.
Overall,
car makers committed more than 4bn of investment into the UK last
year, as well as generating and safeguarding tens of thousands of jobs,
both directly and in the supply chain.
Paul
Everitt, of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, said: ‘The
UK economy is having a tough time but we can build profitable
manufacturing here despite the financial crisis.’
Mark Swift, of manufacturing lobby group the EEF, agrees. ‘Car manufacturing is one of the positive stories.
‘There
would obviously be implications if the cost of borrowing rose because
of any actions regarding the UK’s credit rating, but at the moment we
are concentrating on the real economy.’
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