Agfa ‘fully loaded’ as it defies the uncertainty

MONTHLY indicators for manufacturing activity might suggest we are sailing through stormy waters, but for one Yorkshire company at least it is a case of steady as you go.

Speaking as the Office for National Statistics released its output figures for June, a director at Agfa’s UK subsidiary revealed that his business has performed consistently well through the first half of 2011. The multinational company has an £80m-turnover factory in Leeds, manufacturing aluminium lithographic printers for the global printing industry.

Graham Cooper told the Yorkshire Post: “Going up to Christmas we were under- loaded.

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“As we came into the new year we have been fully loaded. The same for January, February, March, April, May and June.

“We don’t see any change, but this year is substantially better than last year.

“There is quite a long supply chain between us and the end user; we don’t see month to month variations, we see longer term variations than that.”

The factory employs 90 people. They make a semi-finished product, which is shipped to France and then all over the world.

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The group view of the global economy sees a recovery in America, a recovery and then stalling in Europe and growth in the Far East, said Mr Cooper.

Yesterday’s ONS figures showed that manufacturing output rose at its fastest pace in over a year in May as factories ramped up output after a Royal Wedding-related drop in April.

Industrial output, however, failed to fully recoup April’s losses and the figures are unlikely to alter the view that Britain’s recovery is struggling to gain traction after lurching into reverse at the end of last year.

The Bank of England has kept interest rates at a record low 0.5 per cent for more than two years and investors are not expecting any rise before 2012.

The UK’s manufacturing sector has been one of the few bright spots in the economy, but it accounts for just 12 per cent of total output.

In Yorkshire, it accounts for 16 per cent.