Mark Garnier, a junior Conservative minister at the Department for International Trade has written a piece for The New Statesman (HERE) about the "global marketplace" - in other words, the internet - as a tool for selling overseas. The DIT has launched a "digital trade hub" which is designed to make things easier for UK businesses to "access overseas business opportunities". Overseas buyers will now be able to access a ‘Find a Supplier’ service on the DIT website matching them with "exporters across the UK who have created profiles and will be able to meet their needs".
He, along with many Brexiteers, is labouring under the delusion that overseas buyers are a bit dim and don't know what we make, that UK manufacturing is actually a world-leader but is somehow operating in secret and only needs a government department to advertise it for exports to surge. This is to profoundly misunderstand the problem. You can create a website in a few days. To reform British attitudes and manufacturing will take a generation or two - even if we actually recognise this is the problem. Mr Garnier's article shows we haven't even got to that point yet.
To be successful you first need products to sell. These need to be well made at a competitive price with good reliability and proper after market support. You then need to build a reputation, not just as a supplier but as a world-leader, and over many years. We do not have enough companies who can offer all these things - the proof of this is in the import figures. We import as much as we do because consumers here know that foreign made goods are usually better value.
To be successful you first need products to sell. These need to be well made at a competitive price with good reliability and proper after market support. You then need to build a reputation, not just as a supplier but as a world-leader, and over many years. We do not have enough companies who can offer all these things - the proof of this is in the import figures. We import as much as we do because consumers here know that foreign made goods are usually better value.
Until this changes the DIT can spend as much as it likes on digital services, it won't make any difference.
