Report highlights reliance on imports from Asia
Britain has become increasingly reliant on manufacturing imports from Asian low-cost countries over the past four years, despite supply chain disruption due to the pandemic, a new study has found.
This is one of the findings from the Manufacturing Technology Centre’s inaugural UK Reshoring Index, which analyses UK manufacturing output and import data from 14 Asian low-cost countries (LCCs) to track whether the UK is reshoring manufacturing back from Asia.
The index’s manufacturing import ratio (MIR) - manufactured goods imports from Asian LCCs as a percentage of UK manufacturing gross output - reached 61 per cent in Q3 2021, an increase from 43 per cent in Q1 2018. A higher percentage indicates a lower level of reshoring.
According to the MTC, this increase in the MIR marks the continuation of a decades-long trend, as globalisation and the free movement of goods have led to British companies relocating their production overseas, and consumers becoming more reliant on manufacturing goods produced in low-cost countries.
The increase in the MIR is marked by two key trends, the first being that UK manufacturing output is yet to recover from 2018 levels. In Q3 2021, the latest period of data available, the figure was three per cent lower than Q1 2018.
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