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UK LEADS WORLD IN EXPORT OF ‘IDEAS AND KNOWLEDGE’
If Germany leads the way in the automotive industry and Japan at micro electronics, what does Britain excel at economically? The answer is in the ‘knowledge services’.
The Work Foundation argues that knowledge services - in essence selling specialised brainpower - is the one category of economic activity in which the UK appears to be leading the rest of the world.
Analysing official trade figures (from the government’s ‘Pink Book’), the paper finds that in 2005, the UK exported about £75 billion worth of ‘knowledge
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IMPLEMENTATION OF UK’S FIRST FUEL CELL
UPS Systems Plc has announced the UK’s first commercial implementation of a fuel cell-based standby power system at Winton Capital Management Limited. The fuel cell UPS solution implemented at Winton is the first to be supplied by UPS Systems. The fuel cell provides a constant source of power even in a confined space where an alternative power supply may not be available. This follows UPS Systems’ own purchase, in 2006, of a similar system now protecting the company’s IT infrastructure within its headquarters in Hung
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JOINT VENTURE TO BUILD A
£200M UK BIOFUEL PLANT
Associated British Foods plc, the international food, ingredients and retail group, has announced that it has reached agreement with BP and DuPont on an investment to build a world-scale biofuel plant in the UK. A joint venture will be formed, subject to regulatory approval, to build the plant and operate the business. ABF and BP will each hold 45 percent of the joint venture and DuPont will hold the remaining 10 percent.
The plant will produce bioethanol from wheat and will be built at a cost of £200m at BP’s che
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CHINA CAPS TRADE
TO AVOID SURPLUS
Expansion in China’s politically sensitive trade surplus will slow, as recently adopted measures aimed at trimming exports start to take hold, the Commerce Ministry said on Wednesday.
China’s trade surplus hit a record $26.9 billion in June, continuing a string of strong results that brought the overall surplus for the first half to $112.5 billion - 83 percent higher than in the January to June period of 2006.
Some economists said the large surplus in June was partly the result of exporters rushing out ship
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US IN EURO ZONE
GROWTH SHADOW
European economic growth will likely outshine the US this year, but a fightback looks to be underway as calls for Federal Reserve interest rate cuts have faded, a Reuters poll showed.
The poll of around 250 economists in the US, Japan, euro zone and the UK, showed US economic growth reaching 2.2 percent in 2007.
This was well short of the 2.7 percent forecast for the euro zone and UK and just shy of the 2.3 percent growth seen this fiscal year for Japan.
Those projections come after a dramatic tumble in wor
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BUSINESSES LOOKING FORWARD
TO GROWTH AND BETTER PROFIT
Firms are optimistic that strong growth in demand and output will continue, helping them rebuild profit margins, the latest CBI/RDA survey of Regional Economic Trends had revealed.
Over the past 12 months demand and output have grown robustly, and businesses expect the growth to strengthen over the coming year. This has lifted optimism about the business environment and firms hope that profit margins, which have been under pressure from energy and other costs, will improve further. Job creation is predicted to con
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CEMENT INDUSTRY AIM FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
A new report published by the British Cement Association charts the significant progress made by the cement industry towards meeting its sustainable development goals.
Key achievements include:
• Reduction of direct CO2 emissions by 28 percent since 1990 giving CO2 savings of over 3.7 million tonnes
• Fossil fuel consumption cut by over 22 percent between 1998 and 2005
• One million tonnes of waste diverted from landfill in 2005, as over 14 percent of kiln fuels and almost 5 percent of virgin raw materials
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STANLEY INTRODUCES
Stanley has developed a new (patent pending) ergonomic two-handed start solution that keeps the operator’s hands away from rotating spindles and pinch points while using DC nut runners, especially tube nuts. Until now, all two-handed controls for nut runners have relied on fixed push-buttons or extra levers mounted in various locations rendering the tools ergonomically disadvantageous.
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BRADFORD’S GREEN LEARNING BACKED
The University of Bradford has secured millions of pounds worth of backing for a scheme that aims to embed environmental sustainability across its curriculum and into its student learning and living experience. On World Environment Day this year the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) confirmed it will provide £3.1m to support the University’s ‘Ecoversity StuDent’ scheme.
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| Brains and beauty |
Furness and West Cumbria’s West Coast is about to experience a major investment that will strengthen the tourism and industry s ...
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| National Stadium, Beijing |
At the pinnacle of its construction, the National Stadium in Beijing had 7,000 workers toiling over the infrastructure. ...
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No smoke without fire
It seems that commentators, industry heads, central bankers and, dare I say it, Industrial Focus’s own journalists have made so ...
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Innovation for the nations
Hope for the future has arisen from the turmoil of the last few months, as industrial technologies have spun out some marvels o ...
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Supposedly the construction
materials of the future, composites are increasingly seen in
applications where optimum efficiency is paramount including
aircraft construction and renewable energy. As two research
examples show in this video, composites really are the future
for efficiency.
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