Positive response

Globalisation has in the past been damaging to the UK and resulted in the decline of large segments of our manufacturing across a range of sectors. In the past 40 years or so there has also been a general drift in this country from an industrial to a service-based economy.

In what might be termed 'the first period' of globalisation, UK manufacturing struggled to cope with the cost efficiencies and quality of the expanding economies of the far east (particularly Japan) but also the quality and design innovations of the more established economies of the US and Europe.

In the second phase, our manufacturing has been impacted by the low-cost economies of China, the countries belonging to the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and increasingly India and eastern Europe — countries that see manufacturing as one of the foundations of their growth and development.

Although it could be said that UK manufacturing was slow to react, it is also fair to say that some of the challenges of these periods, particularly concerning cost, were difficult to respond to quickly in a world that was becoming global and prepared to purchase its goods from low-cost suppliers — providing the required level of quality was maintained.