Get expert insight on the future of UK manufacturing from Andrew Thurston, MHA. Filmed at our specialist pre-event roundtable ahead of the Made in the UK Awards.
00:00I'm Andrew Thurston. I'm the MHA Customs Duty Senior Manager. I've been with the company for the last five and a half years.
00:16Fantastic. So obviously MHA are our sponsors for Made in the UK. So from your point of view, you know, why did you guys want to get behind this?
00:28I think from our perspective, obviously manufacturing is a big part of cross-border trade and with all these global situations going on at the moment, it's an ideal time to sit down in front of businesses, discuss their issues and try and work out what the common themes may be.
00:46Yeah. Yeah. And so today we've done three round tables. We've done an ESG and sustainability one. We've done a kind of future looking AI one and we've done an international one. And you were sitting on the international one.
01:01So what were some of the sort of standout themes from that round table for you?
01:06I think it just highlighted the complexities of just setting yourselves up or moving into a different marketplace. The taxation rules, the sort of local requirements, even just the sort of the culture aspects and the considerations that a business needs to undertake just to be able to get into that marketplace.
01:30Yeah. I think culture culture is a big one, isn't it? And also understanding that even within a single country, there's potentially different ways of doing things, isn't there?
01:39Exactly. Yeah. And it's not something that I appreciate really coming from a tax background, but when you're looking at perhaps just getting a contract over the line, just having that local awareness and understanding of how businesses operate, how people operate could be the defining factor.
01:57And so what are some of the ways that you'll support your clients at MHA when it comes to international trade and, you know, specifically manufacturers, because that's the theme.
02:07Yeah. So for manufacturing, obviously you're looking at potentially bringing in raw materials for production and then hopefully re-exporting globally.
02:16So helping clients understand, you know, the potential benefits of using custom special procedures and processing to reduce the duty impact within the UK.
02:28Things like free ports and customs warehousing, all those sorts of customs benefits that might help reduce costs within the supply chain.
02:37So made in the UK, all of the companies shortlisted tonight are all companies that have previously won at the regional made ins.
02:46So these are all kind of best in class companies, aren't they? I mean, such a great array of companies from a very broad spectrum of manufacturing, isn't it?
02:57Exactly. Yeah. And it's it just shows the sort of what the UK can produce and hopefully, you know, it continues to grow.
