“People are beginning to push the start button on projects that had been on hold,” chief executive of trade industry association Picon, Bettine Pellant told PrintWeek.
Pellant said that after meeting with Picon members, including the British Paper Machinery Suppliers Association (BPMSA), following the summer and of course the referendum result, the sense was one of confidence.
“The feeling really is business is steady,” she said. “Profits are up from last month, finishing equipment manufacturers are doing well, they are benefiting from the weak pound on exports.
“Of course if you ask anyone to compare to pre-2008 numbers people are going to say their order books aren’t as full, margins aren’t what people want and there is often some uncertainty of where the next big contract might come from but the overarching climate out there is that people are absolutely not being complacent,” she added.
Pellant said members had reported no impact from Brexit and among other business improvement strategies were focusing on things like reduction of water and energy usage. “There is also a lot of upgrading of existing systems going on, as opposed to investing in a lot of new equipment,” she said.
Pellant said: “Put it this way: we had a members’ golf day and you know things are going well when they have to cancel because they’re too busy to come.”
According to Pellant one event that was continuing to boost business among BPMSA member companies was, ironically, the closure last year of Aylesford Newsprint in Kent.
“Following the sad demise of Aylesford a lot of that equipment is being removed and recommissioned by our members and installed in India, China and Egypt so although that’s a very sad story, it is also positive in another respect,” she explained.
Picon will be collating business data from across the industry in the coming weeks.
Elsewhere, data from across the wider UK manufacturing landscape shows positive signs with the Markit/CIPS purchasing managers index (PMI), which tracks output and new orders across a range of sectors, reporting a 10-month high of 53.3, up five points from July. Any figure over 50 indicates growth.
It showed export orders had been boosted by the weakened pound, following the UK’s decision to exit the EU, but that equally cost of imported goods had increased. Domestic orders and employment were also up across the manufacturing sector, the report showed.
Meanwhile, according to a new report published by manufacturers’ organisation EEF and Santander, The UK’s manufacturing industry has climbed to ninth position in the global rankings in what it called “an industrial renaissance”.
The new ‘manufacturing card’ puts annual output across the manufacturing industry at $247bn (£190.7bn), accounting for 10% of the UK economy’s GVA.
This optimism was reflected also in the latest monthly CBI Industrial Trends Survey, published on 22 September, which showed that although costs remained a concern, manufacturers’ orders were above average levels and output was expected to increase over the next three months.
