BMF Publishes Industry Trends Survey

by Jason Gorringe, Tax-News.com, London

01 September 2008

The British Marine Federation (BMF) last month published the findings of its Spring industry survey, which bi-annually measures trends in the marine leisure sector.

According to the BMF, the latest results show that the credit crunch being experienced by the country as a whole is also likely to have an impact on the marine industry.

However, it revealed that the majority of economic measures for the period under review, November 2007 to May 2008, have remained at the same levels as reported for the six month period prior to November 2007.

The Federation observed that:

"It is encouraging that in terms of business, performance workload and orders have remained steady and in fact exports have increased slightly. However, the effect on turnover and the workforce is beginning to show more compared to this time a year ago."

"Positively, future business prospects for the large majority (84%) are still expected to be excellent/good/ok, although more are now stating it is ‘ok’ rather than ‘good’. Only 15% believe the next six months will be poor and 1% very poor."

The general economic climate, both in the UK and internationally, dominated as the main concern for the marine industry, according to the survey findings.

They also showed that the impending increase in fuel costs following the end of the derogation on red diesel is also causing concern. The BMF is currently in negotiations with HRMC to mitigate the impact of this on the industry.

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