If there are threats by Ford and BMW to withdraw from producing in Britain, it gives an opportunity to recover Rolls-Royce, Rover and Ford assets at knock-down prices, while making life difficult for hostile car companies to sell their products here. It would also serve notice on assorted American and German bosses operating other assets here to keep out of British politics.
The imminent closure of the Fujitsu semi-conductor factory in Durham, following the closure of the Siemens semi-conductor plant in the same area (report, Sept. 5th) should underline to the Government the folly of relying on foreign companies for such a large proportion of new manufacturing investment.
The chief benefit of foreign investment has, in fact, been to bring much needed expertise and modern quality standards to parts of British industry. Yet at the same time it has exposed once again the near total failure of the British financial system to invest in British industry in anything like the amounts needed to sustain it as a viable entity.
The passing into foreign ownership of Rover and Rolls-Royce cars, Courtaulds and a wide range of well-respected smaller engineering companies (Crabtree, on Tyneside, is under bid now) will in due course expose more British workers to the brutal fact that when the chips are down and markets are shrinking, foreign owners will close British plants before they close their own.
Mr Blair may well be “saddened” by the Fujitsu factory’s closure, but such characteristic emotion is no substitute for the hard intellectual and managerial task of putting right, in the fact of enormous entrenched interests, our defective corporate financial system. Fiddling with interest rates is no substitute either.
S F Bush
To read the text please click on The Engineer as Decision Maker which will take you to the paper on the Britain Watch website.
