Manufacturing set for decade high
Source: Financial Times
Manufacturing is set this year to reach its highest level for more than a decade as a percentage of total world output, indicating that in a difficult global economy the industrial sector is returning to its historic role as a growth driver.
The change is outlined in data made available to the FT from IHS Global Insight, a US consultancy. It supports the idea that a new industrial revolution – after four similar growth spurts over the past 250 years – is now under way.
Jeff Immelt, chief executive of General Electric, the US industrial conglomerate, said the world was experiencing “a new zeitgeist” in the shape of a “global manufacturing renaissance”. As a result, GE is likely to have “a lot” more plants globally in a decade’s time than now. “Twenty years ago I would not have said that, I would have said just the opposite,” he said.
Mr Immelt said that behind this projection are changes in technology that were leading to more opportunities for manufacturers to make products in fields from aerospace to medicine, plus the boost in demand for goods from two billion more relatively well-off people emerging from the developing regions over the next few years.
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