You can't win 'em all
Page 64

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WHILE the strength of sterling continues to give British industry greater buying power when importing new , materials and products overseas, exports from Britain face growing problems due to distorted exchange rates.
Importers derive the greatest benefit from this situation and at the annual general meeting of MAN at Augsburg earlier this month Otto Voisard, chairman of the engineering group which, of course, includes the wellknown commercial vehicle division, underlined the fact that the present relationship between the depressed Deutschmark and UK sterling, US dollars and Japanese yen had brought significant improvements to the trading position of his company.
Declaring a 14 per cent dividend, he stated that export turnover had risen by 21 per cent while orders in hand had shown a 37 per cent rise over the previous year.
Voisard also revealed that high production costs continue to affect the competitiveness of the group and that another factor causing concern is the serious shortage of trained engineers and skilled workers.