ONE of the great claims of prime minister David Cameron’s governments was they were going to rebalance the economy, away from dodgy, speculative bankers in favour of worthy, old-fashioned metal-bashers. In fact, over the past five years, manufacturing’s share of Britain’s GDP has barely budged from about 10%. That is disappointing, especially after a raft of government schemes were introduced to help manufacturers. But now, if new figures are to be believed, there may be worse to come.

The EEF manufacturers’ organisation, one of the main bodies representing the sector, has just published its quarterly outlook report, and it makes for bleak reading. The EEF is halving its manufacturing growth forecast to 0.7% and they warn that output is dropping to its lowest level since the end of 2009, in the depths of the recession. New export orders are at a six-year low. Domestic demand has also weakened.

The EEF report comes on the back of other weak data. The Purchasing Manager’s Index (PMI) of the sector, a measure of output, fell in July from 51.9 to 51.5. Overall, the British economy grew by 0.7% in the second quarter of this year, but manufacturing declined by about 0.3%.

There are several immediate reasons for the slowdown, namely the appreciation of sterling, subdued demand in the euro zone and the recent economic turmoil in China. Samuel Tombs, an economist at Capital Economics, a research outfit, says the data suggest “that a sustained revival in the export-manufacturing sector will remain a distant prospect.”

It’s not all doom and gloom. The EEF reports that whereas sectors such as electrical and mechanical equipment makers are particularly weak, others such as the transport and electrical sectors report more output. And Britain’s niche manufacturers, for items such as handmade shoes and bicycles (pictured), are also doing quite well.

Nonetheless, even the rare success stories point to the enduring problems of Britain’s manufacturers. Dyson, a maker of cordless vacuums and bladeless fans, recently reported a record-busting 2014, with revenues up by 10% to £1.3 billion. Yet although the company may be based in the rural English town of Malmesbury, where all its design and testing takes place, all its manufacturing has been moved to Singapore and Malaysia to take advantage of lower costs and to be nearer its fastest-growing markets. Even in reporting the results, the company still managed a very familiar moan about the difficulties of finding new engineers in Britain to staff its expanding Malmesbury campus. Most British manufacturers would second that complaint, pointing to some of the longer-term problems that have yet to be addressed if the metal-bashers are ever to advance on that 10%.