Manufacturing continues its march

● CBI industrial trends report spotlights sector at 30-year highs

cent of businesses said the volume of output over the past three months was up, and 11 per cent said it was down, giving a rounded balance of +30 per cent above the longrun average of +4 per cent.

Just under 30 per cent of companies expect average selling prices to increase in the coming three months, with 6 per cent predicting a decline, giving a balance of +23 per cent.

A total of 7 per cent of firms said their present stocks of finished goods are more than adequate, whilst 10 per cent said they were less than adequate, giving a balance of -3 per cent.

Howard Archer, chief economic advisor to the EY Item Club, which uses the Treasury’s economic advisor, commented: “The December CBI survey indicates that manufacturing has likely posted another strong performance in the fourth quarter of 2017 after being very much the UK economy’s brightest sector in the third quarter.

“Furthermore, robust orders in December bode well for manufacturing output at the start of 2018. Encouragingly both domestic and foreign demand were buoyant in December while the strength in orders was also reported to be broad-based across sectors.”