AIRCRAFT EXPORTS

Evening Post, Issue 50, 27 August 1935, Page 12

AIRCRAFT EXPORTS

EXPANSION IN BRITAIN

(From. "The Post's" Representative.) . ■ LONDON, August 3. i Britain's - aeronautical exports are soaring. In the six months ended June 30, the value of aircraft material sent overseas (excluding magnetos) was £1,486,950- r £584,630 more than in the corresponding period of 1934 and more than the value of the entire export for the year 1933. The peak year to date in British aircraft export trade was 1929, when aggregate value reached £2,158,667. After that year, up to and including 1933,' export business declined under the influence of the world financial and economic crises.

Evidently the industry is entering a phi.se of expanding foreign business. The upward trend is especially marked in engine exports, the isolated figure for which in 1934 was higher than in any previous year since the war. Now that the Government is going ahead with a considerable scheme for enlargement of the E.A.F., the industry will be in an even better position to cope with contracts from abroad, because of the idle workshop space now being brought again into use and the additional machinery and tool equipment demanded by the expansion programme.

Sir P. Cunliffe-Lister, the Air Minister, was able to refute statements that the expansion scheme might interfere with the capacity of the industry to supply civil • and foreign buyers when he spoke to representatives of 47 nations at the S.B.A.C. display. He said: "I say with authority that the capacity and resilience of this great industry are such that it can and will fulfil everything required by the Government programme and anything required .in connection with foreign contracts."