Search Results for "Industrial News"

About the Industrial Industry

The industrial market sector covers a wide array of sub-sectors of manufacturing ranging from the metal industry, steel production, iron-ore production, aluminium manufacturing, glass manufacturing, cable manufacturing, battery manufacturing, parts manufacturing and machine parts. The industrial sector includes all manufacturing sectors ranging from the high to low-technological sub-sectors.

Industrial Manufacturing

Eurozone industrial manufacturing output decreased slightly at the end of 2011 to record a third successive decline up to November 2011 taking manufacturing production 2.4% lower than the peak in August 2011. The decline at the end of 2011 signals the steepest downward trend rate since June 2009 for the Eurozone.

The United Kingdom and the United States also reported contracting industrial output from manufacturing at the end of 2011; the first time this had been recorded since May 2009. Interestingly, international trade flows in manufactured goods declined in August 2011 with new export orders falling in the Eurozone and in particular for Germany. China, Japan, UK and Brazil also reported a decline in new export orders. The United States and Canada saw export orders ride although the rate of this increase fell in August 2011.

To provide an indication of the top manufacturing and industrial countries in the World in terms of output, please refer to the table below which lists the percentage share of GDP output in 2009 by country.

Source: World Bank WDI (2009 Data)

Manufacturing in the United Kingdom is currently the third largest sector in the UK economy, after business services and wholesale/retail in terms of share of UK GDP. In 2009, manufacturing contributed around £140 billion in gross value added to the economy and employed some 2.6 million people.

UK manufacturing is an established leading manufacturer in the world, being the sixth largest manufacturer globally by output, and a leading exporter of technology intensive manufacturing goods. Manufacturing as a share of UK GDP has fallen steadily from 22% in 1990 to just over 11% by 2009. This trend has been more pronounced in the UK than other leading industrialised nations.

Some aspects of manufacturing activity involve relatively higher levels of knowledge, skills, investment and innovation. Various terms have been used to describe manufacturing activity with these characteristics including high-tech manufacturing, high-value manufacturing, advanced manufacturing and modern manufacturing. The OECD subdivides manufacturing into four technology classes based on the relative research and development intensity of manufactured products (see Table 2 below).

The UK's manufacturing labour force has responded to the changing demands of the global economy. Overall employment in UK manufacturing has fallen from 4.7 million in 1994 to 2.6 million in 2009.

However, in addition, the distribution of different types of employment has changed also with the proportions of employees in production and support service trade occupations falling over the period while the professional occupations have increased their share of manufacturing employment. The fall in employment has affected all occupations but focused on the traditional, less skilled production jobs.

Steel Manufacturing

The major steel manufacturing companies were heavily affected by the global economic downturn of recent years although a slight recovery is being recorded in the more developed markets with Europe expected to record a rise in steel demand of 4% in 2011. Steel demand across Europe is still lower in real terms than pre-crisis levels. Demand for steel in the developing countries such as India remain strong with GDP growth in India registering 9% in 2011.

The main steel producing companies are listed below, ranked in terms of their total production in million metric tons.

Note: Handon Iron and Steel Group (12.9mmt) consolidated with Hebei Steel Group in 2010.

2 - includes Osaka Steel and Nippon Steel & Sumikin Stainless Steel Corporation, but does not include Usiminas
3 - includes NatSteel
4 - does not include Panzhihua
5 - does not include Kunming and Echeng
6 - includes share of HKM
7 - does not include Caofeidian and Changzi
8 - includes Bohler Uddelholm

Aluminium Manufacturing

The primary production of alumium worldwide increased in 2010 mainly due to new smelters starting and restarting smelters which were shut down in 2008 and early 2009 as demand recovers from the economic downturn. New smelters and restarted smelters were mainly located in China, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Smelters in Norway which were shut down during the middle of 2009 still remained closed in 2010.

Aluminium production volumes in the United States increased rom 1,727,258 metric tons in 2010 to a total of 1,986,447 metric tons in 2011.

Source: US Geological Survey