Bucks engineering firms who supply the motor trade could be in for a lucrative decade so long as they can successfully stave off countries such as Portugal, Poland and the Far East.

According to Prof Garel Rhys of Cardiff Business School, speaking at a Sunday Times manufacturing forum, Britain’s car factories would become increasingly dependent on European car buyers’ tastes with 70 per cent of production currently being exported.

He said: “The dependence on our domestic market by UK car makers is a thing of the past with more than 80 per cent of sales coming from imports. It is now the global motor industry in Britain, but it remains dynamic with export levels exceeding Japan’s. The UK acts as a dynamo for foreign producers with only us and Spain generating vibrant sales”.

Rhys predicts that UK car output would reach 1.7 million units this year and could outstrip the 1972 record of 1.9m by the end of the decade. By 2010, he reckons UK car production is likely to hit 3m vehicles annually.

He explains: “Forecasts of a meltdown after car production ended at Luton and Dagenham have proved wrong. They have been more than offset by extra volume at Land Rover, Jaguar and MINI while the Japanese brands remain strong”.

But he issued a warning that UK plants needed to continue producing attractive products and gaps had appeared in the UK portfolio with the lack of compact MPVs, small ‘box van’ light commercial vehicles and heavy trucks.

[ENDS]

Andrew Leech, Cross Reference Tel: 01753 884216