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U.K. Manufacturing Output Stalls on Automakers’ Brexit Shutdown

Factory output volumes posted their slowest growth since April 2016 in the three months to June.

U.K. Manufacturing Output Stalls on Automakers’ Brexit Shutdown
An employee grinds the steel hull at the Harland & Wolff Heavy Industries Ltd. facilities in the Port of Belfast, in Belfast, U.K. (Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- U.K. manufacturing output ground to a near halt in the second quarter as automakers halted production amid uncertainty over the eventual date of Brexit.

Factory output volumes posted their slowest growth since April 2016 in the three months to June, despite 10 of the 17 sub-sectors included reporting growth, according to a Confederation of British Industry survey published Wednesday. The decline was largely driven by the fastest slump in motor vehicle production in over a decade.

U.K. Manufacturing Output Stalls on Automakers’ Brexit Shutdown

Automakers Jaguar Land Rover Automotive Plc, Honda Motor Co. and BMW AG all scheduled production shutdowns in April at their plants in the U.K. to coincide with any potential Brexit disruption around March 29 -- a departure date that was subsequently postponed until October.

Official figures last week showed vehicle production plunged by 24% in April alone, the most since records began in 1995.

To contact the reporter on this story: Lucy Meakin in London at lmeakin1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Paul Gordon at pgordon6@bloomberg.net, David Goodman, Brian Swint

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