WMG Director has given an extensive interview to the Financial Times Manufacturing Editor Peter Marsh calling on the Government to create a new Bank to back manufacturing. He said the new institution was needed to establish a “change of culture” towards manufacturing businesses by conventional banks which he accused of being too “short-term” in their approach.

On the effort by five of the big high-street banks to set up the £2.5bn Business Growth Fund to provide equity and loans to midsized companies including manufacturers, Professor Lord Bhattacharyya told the Financial Times: that “This [the BGF plan] is peanuts compared to what is needed if Britain is to be serious about growth”.

Professor Lord Bhattacharyya said that an industry bank would provide finance to manufacturers at a rate “substantially above” the level that the BGF is planning. The bank he envisages would have “several billion pounds” at its disposal for channelling into manufacturers, with some cash coming from the government and the rest from the private sector.

Professor Lord Bhattacharyya said: “Without a plan like this to support a radical recapitalisation of manufacturing in the UK, the rebalancing talked about by the government won’t work.”

The full FT story can be seen at

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f4beefa0-b3c6-11e0-855b-00144feabdc0.html?ftcamp=rss#axzz1TrzA32pb

The videos can be seen at

http://on.ft.com/mWbhos and http://on.ft.com/qWDm0l

For further information please contact:

Peter Dunn, Head of Communications
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University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 8UW, United Kingdom
email: p.j.dunn@warwick.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)24 76 523708 Mobile/Cell: +44 (0)7767 655860
p.j.dunn@warwick.ac.uk

PR111 PJD 2^nd August 2011