Worldwide Offices
Hopes that Scotland’s manufacturing industry was going to lead the country out of recession took a knock yesterday when CBI Scotland released its latest Industrial Trends Survey. The survey concludes that the sustained growth in the volume of Scottish manufacturing export orders over recent years is expected to come to a halt over the coming quarter, due to mounting concerns over economic and political conditions abroad. There is a summary of the facts and figures here but the bottom line is that confidence over the general business situation and over export prospects for the year ahead remains becalmed, with the latter at its weakest since July 2009. Iain McM
Read More Post a comment
Not many businesses need to be told how tough it is out there at the moment and this week has not brought much good news. On Tuesday, the Office for National Statistics released figures which show that the UK’s Gross Domestic Product grew by just 0.2% in the second quarter. The figures indicate that the UK’s economy is growing at a slower pace than the first quarter of the year when it grew by a scarcely more cheering 0.5%. The Royal Wedding, the Japanese tsunami and warm weather have all been partly blamed for the decrease in the growth. That warm weather has slowed the economy will come as a surprise to those who remember that cold weather at the start of the year was held accountabl
Read More Post a comment
CBI Scotland, which represents 26,000 Scottish businesses, has just launched its own manifesto in the run up to the Holyrood elections in 2011. The headline proposal is that ‘government and public authorities should become commissioners of services, outsourcing the delivery of services to the private and not-for-profit sectors.’ Recently, some commentators see this Tom Miers article in The Herald, have warned that the imminent public sector cuts will impact heavily on private sector contractors. CBI Scotland’s
