Factory that's stuck in the past

By Rob Pittam
Business Correspondent

Manufacturers are having a hard time

How well do you remember 1985?

It was a big year for Clive Sinclair, who was launching his ill-fated C5 battery-powered three-wheeler.

Hi-8 camcorders were the last word in home technology, EastEnders was taking to our screens for the first time and Whitney Houston was saving all her love for you.

It was an important year too for Birmingham entrepeneur Javid Aziz.

He decided to leave his safe job in banking to join his brother and set up a manufacturing company, Firstpress.

Same prices

Almost two decades later and Whitney and Clive have moved on to other things, Hi-8 camcorders are gathering dust in attics around the country and EastEnders is still going strong.

Firstpress makes a range of plastic products

But Javid finds himself in the incredible position of charging his customers the same prices he did back in the 1980s.

A visit to his factory in Birmingham's Balsall Heath is a vivid introduction to the problems Britain's manufacturers are facing.

The streets around his site are full of small firms of metal bashers, sprayers and component makers. But slowly their numbers are dwindling.

Figures out this week from the CBI show that almost half of our manufacturers say that order books are below normal.

No surprise

That comes as no surprise to the businesses of Balsall Heath.

"Things are terrible for manufacturers," says Javid.

"Every day is a struggle to survive."

Every day is a struggle to survive. Javid Aziz, Firstpress

His plastic pressing company makes anything from parts for boilers, to garden plant pots and children's toys.

There are 26 staff, but at its height the company employed more than 50.

Once upon a time the metal mouldings they use were made by engineering firms around the Midlands. Now they've all gone and the work goes abroad.

Javid fears that without government help, his company could soon follow them.

Costs cut to the bone

"Everyone says to us that we have to be more efficient. But we've cut our costs to the bone. We are charging the same prices that we charged in 1985 - there's no way we can cut any more.

The workforce has halved over the years

"But manufacturers in other parts of the world get help from their governments, we get nothing.

"The minimum wage is going up, rates are going through the roof and more legislation is brought in.

"We've been dealing with a German machine maker and they get a grant from their government for everything they make, which helps them to subsidise the cost. We get nothing like that."

It's no joke for the workforce, either.

Shakeel Ahmed has been with the company since 1990.

If this company went I don't know what to do. Shakeel Ahmed

"It's a real strain having to worry about work and whether we'll have a job this time next year," he says.

"If this company went I don't know what to do. All the jobs around here seem to be just disappearing."

When Javid set up the company there were just three workers. He and his brother used to sleep at the factory because they had sunk so much money into it they couldn't afford to live anywhere else.

Now he fears all that hard work could be wasted.

He says both Labour and Conservative governments have ignored the needs of industry.

The hard times mean the company has just cancelled a plan to invest in new machinery.

Javid fears that if nothing is done, British manufacturing will soon be going the same way as the Sinclair C5.