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on our continued ability to manufacture the kind of goods that consumers in other countries want and are willing to pay for. Manufacturing itself, as a broad function, employs nearly 900,000 people directly and, as I have suggested, many many more indirectly. These 900,000 employees and the take home pay they earn represent the core of our social system and their expenditure sustains our internal distributive and retail sectors. No other sector of employment comes close to manufacturing in its contribution to our overall well being. Blue collar workers have played, and will continue to play, an essential role in our society.
It is therefore, in my view, extremely important that the Government should be able to monitor the development, the strengths, the weaknesses and the problems of this essential sector of the economy. I acknowledge that this is more than
Firstly the usually difficult for at least two reasons. Government follows a non-interventionist non-subsidy policy towards manufacturing which means, among other things, that the Government does not obtain industrial statistical information on production and other important elements of manufacturing by legal requirement, thus making it difficult for there to be a continuous statistical framework within which the trends of
There is also no organised production can be readily assessed. system, as in many countries, by which industrial growth opportunities, early warning signs of problems arising for
The manufacturers and possible solutions can be determined. Government's policy towards manufacturing industry has been to provide, as far as possible, the infrastructure and some of the institutions which industry has clearly needed and could not provide for itself. In other words, the Government has reacted to need after the need has become sufficiently strong as to be obvious to all. There have been times when even this support and assistance has been provided very late in the day.
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