SCOTTISH manufacturers have suffered their sharpest quarterly fall in export order volumes since 1994, a key survey has revealed.
The report, published by the Confederation of British Industry, also shows a further fall in UK order volumes for the manufacturing sector north of the Border.
And it signals that overall output volumes for Scottish manufacturers were broadly flat in the latest three months. According to the CBI survey, the manufacturing sector north of the Border last achieved an overall rise in output volumes in the three months to October 2014.
Subtracting the proportion reporting a rise from that posting a fall, a balance of 45 per cent of Scottish manufacturers reported a fall in export order volumes in the three months to October. This signals the sharpest drop in any quarterly survey since April 1994, and was a much worse outturn than the balance of 21 per cent of Scottish manufacturers experiencing a drop in export order volumes in the previous quarterly survey.
Meanwhile, a balance of 15 per cent of manufacturers north of the Border recorded a fall in domestic order volumes during the three months to October.
And a net one per cent of Scottish manufacturers experienced a fall in output volumes during the three-month period.
CBI Scotland director Hugh Aitken said: “Manufacturers have been struggling with export demand for several months because of subdued global growth and the strong pound. Alongside that pressure, Scottish manufacturers have also been facing [an easing of] domestic demand.”
The CBI’s UK-wide industrial trends survey recorded the first decline in the sector’s production in two years in the three months to October.
Chancellor George Osborne had, in his March 2011 Budget, spelled out his vision of “a Britain carried aloft by the march of the makers”.
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