- 4 new automotive plants are opening across the
country, creating 500 new jobs
- Investment Minister welcomes the news
and £130 million foreign direct investment into the
UK
- UK automotive sector exported £41 billion worth of
products in 2017
Minister for Investment has welcomed £130
million of foreign direct investment (FDI) into the UK
automotive sector, creating nearly 500 jobs in four new
plants across the country.
The news comes following a report from EY which found
the UK remains the number one destination
for FDI in Europe
in 2017 to 2018.
Thanks to support from the Department for International
Trade, 4 separate companies from across the globe -
including Steel & Alloy, Polytec and Magna - have
all chosen to invest in the UK and open new
automotive-related plants this month.
As the UK forms its own trade and investment policy for
the first time in 4 decades, this marks the latest
boost for a sector which exported £41.3 billion of
products, including 1,340 000 vehicles, in 2017 – up
from £37.8 million on 2016 - to over 160 international
markets. According to SMMT,
more than 137,000 new vehicles rolled off the UK’s
production line this May.
This includes lucrative emerging non-EU markets such as
China, to whom the UK exported £4.2 billion of
automotive products last year – growth of 16.7% on
2016.
Minister for Investment, said:
The opening of these 4 new plants is a fantastic
example of investment pouring into the UK from around
the world, which I witnessed in Oldbury. This is a
clear sign of confidence in the strength of the UK’s
automotive sector, which remains one of the most
competitive in the world.
As an international economic department, this is an
excellent example of the work that DIT -
with its sector-specific expertise and capability -
is doing to create jobs and prosperity for
communities up and down the country.
The new factories across the country include:
- Magna International Inc: A new aluminium-casting
factory in Telford to support Jaguar Land Rover, the
£77.6 million investment from the Canadian company will
create 295 jobs when at full capacity
- Polytec Ltd: A new facility in Telford will build
bumpers and accessories for car manufacturers,
including Jaguar Land Rover. Austria-based Polytec have
invested £18 million in the project, which will create
100 jobs
- Steel & Alloy Ltd: £26 million investment
by S&A’s Spanish parent
company Gonvarri to build a steel processing plant in
Oldbury, creating 60 jobs. Customers include Ford, JLR
and BMW
The new openings are a further confirmation that the
UK’s automotive sector remains one of the strongest of
its type in the world, offering the highest value added
per employee in car manufacturing of any European
country, with competitive labour costs and low
corporation tax.
- investors will be able to count on the UK
automotive sector remaining as one of the most
innovative in the world in years to come, with the
government having committed to increasing
public R&D spending
to £12.5 billion by 2021 to 2022, and 2.4% of GDP by
2027 – the most significant increase of
public R&D funding
ever
- EY’s UK
Attractiveness Survey 2018 shows that the UK
leads Europe in FDIand is third in
the world for inward FDI stock
