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Article: Strong pound hammers machine tool exports.
- Article from:
- The Engineer
- Article date:
- April 24, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 Centaur Communications Limited. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Forecaster see signs that sterling will continue to remain high, leading to a massive impact on overseas sales prospects for the machine tool industry
The strong pound has had a devastating effect on machine tool exports, which slumped by 16% last year, or nearly 100m [pounds sterling], according to figures out this month. Imports were up 10%.
Both figures were worse than the forecasts, which had not anticipated such a dramatic rise in the value of sterling last year.
John Walker, chairman of Oxford Economic Forecasting (OEF), expects sterling to stay strong for some time. `The levels are not sustainable but it could stay at this level for the ...