THE latest Quarterly Economic Survey report for the Black Country paints a bleak picture of the manufacturing sector.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless more than half of manufacturing and two-thirds of service sector responses expect turnover to increase over the next 12 months.<\/p>\n
But expectations that profitability will improve over the next 12 months amongst manufacturers has dropped by half since its peak at the end of 2013.<\/p>\n
Commenting on the results, Black Country Chamber of Commerce president Ninder Johal said:\u00a0 “At the start of 2014 we were reporting high levels of optimism, growth and sales. It is disappointing to see exports decline so quickly.<\/p>\n
\u201cI understand that the European and Russian markets have collapsed for different reasons and that there is a slowdown in China.<\/p>\n
\u201cNevertheless, Brand Britain still counts across the world and our Export Expert programme will help identify new opportunities.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese results suggest that any economic recovery being reported is not being driven by business investment. We have seen the dangers of consumer-led bubbles in the past and yet newspaper reports suggest that underneath the rhetoric of deficit reduction and high growth lies a very dangerous set of assumptions behind how far consumers are prepared to go to supplement their falling standards of living.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" THE latest Quarterly Economic Survey report for the Black Country […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n