JCB has unveiled plans to plug \u00a3100 million into modernising\u00a0its Staffordshire head office, as its boss said the firm was \u201cbacking Britain\u201d despite concerns about future tax rises and steel tariffs.<\/p>\n
The British maker of equipment including tractors and machinery said the new funding showed its commitment to being based in the UK, despite it currently expanding in the US.<\/p>\n
Spending would go towards modern manufacturing facilities, including funding a \u00a360 million fully automated powder paint plant, new machining centres, friction welding and cylinder boring machines.<\/p>\n
Anthony Bamford, JCB\u2019s chairman and the late founder\u2019s son, said: \u201cIt makes perfect sense to invest heavily in our British factories and the \u00a3100 million we are investing now will put us at the forefront of our industry.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, we are expanding overseas, not least in America, where we have been for decades. But the UK is our home.\u201d<\/p>\n
The company employs about 19,000 people around the world, more than 8,000 of which are in the UK.<\/p>\n
JCB said it would be revamping its factory in Rocester (Rui Vieira\/PA) <\/p>\n
Graeme Macdonald, JCB\u2019s chief executive, said it was \u201ctime for a full revamp\u201d of the factory in Rocester, aligning with the company\u2019s 80th anniversary.<\/p>\n
He said the investment was being made despite the UK economy coming up against a series of \u201cheadwinds\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the UK, the last budget was, you could say, not very business friendly,\u201d he told the PA news agency, referring to employer national insurance hikes, coming on top of steeper energy costs,\u201d Mr Macdonald said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to make sure that as an economy and as a country, we remain globally competitive.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there\u2019s any more business tax headwinds, that\u2019s going to be really bad news for the economy because it\u2019s businesses like ourselves who employ more people who generate tax revenues for the Chancellor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Macdonald said that JCB would \u201ccontinue to back Britain\u201d because it was a \u201cgood place to manufacture and do business\u201d despite the challenges.<\/p>\n
The chief executive also warned that higher US tariffs on British steel exports were having a \u201csignificant impact\u201d on the industry.<\/p>\n
Steel and aluminium \u2013 metals which are used to make JCB\u2019s equipment \u2013 are subject to higher levies as a result of changes introduced by US President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
The King, right, unveiled a plaque commemorating the company\u2019s 80th anniversary during a visit to JCB World headquarters in Rocester in February (Arthur Edwards\/The Sun\/PA) <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not only paying a 10% base tariff, we\u2019re then paying 25% on the steel content of every machine \u2013 and every machine\u2019s made of steel basically,\u201d he told PA.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it\u2019s punitive \u2013 it\u2019s costing us a lot of money, straight to the bottom line.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut that is one of the reasons we announced immediately to double investment in San Antonio, to make more products in America rather than importing from the UK.\u201d<\/p>\n
JCB\u2019s workforce was being granted an additional day\u2019s holiday on October 24 to celebrate its anniversary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JCB has unveiled plans to plug \u00a3100 million into modernising\u00a0its Staffordshire head office, as its boss said the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[37722,748,168908,393,168909,4884,119018,168910,1144,712,72150,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-518559","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-80th-anniversary","11":"tag-britain","12":"tag-business-tax","13":"tag-england","14":"tag-graeme-macdonald","15":"tag-great-britain","16":"tag-jcb","17":"tag-mr-macdonald","18":"tag-northern-ireland","19":"tag-scotland","20":"tag-steel-tariffs","21":"tag-uk","22":"tag-united-kingdom","23":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115415569165471089","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}