COMMENT

Today there is much press talk about the "new" and "old" economies - as if everything that is new, modem, electronic or Intemet based is going to sweep away everything else. But the "knowledge economy", to quote Prime Minister Blair, is not going to replace the need for someone, somewhere, to produce the goods and support services which we all need. Man cannot live by microchip alone. In the 1970's the widely accepted economic philosophy was to favour the "mixed economy" - with a balance between state and privately owned factors of production. In the 1980's Thatcherism promoted a new order in establishing privatisation and free enterprise as the norm, something largely supported by successor Governments. The new 21st century challenge is to champion the new mixed economy, that is an economy that has a winning mix of both manufacturing and service industries. Today, many of our service industries boast an international competitive advantage, such as in financial services and telecommunications. But with the rise and rise of e-communications, there is no guarantee that this advantage will continue. For example, modem communications allow data processing tasks to be conducted at long range (eg in India) and call centres are, increasingly, moving off-shore. Our assertion as construction equipment manufacturers, therefore, is that a vibrant manufacturing base remains as strategically important for our country as ever. Our members account for over £2bn of production in the UK, my job is to ensure that we do not undersell this significant fact when dealing with our political masters.