§ 29. Mr. MacShaneTo ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will list the initiatives he has undertaken to promote the United Kingdom steel industry in 1996. [32139]
§ Mr. EggarMy Department, through BISPA, the British Iron and Steel Producers Association, is working on several initiatives aimed at enhancing the industry's competitiveness. These are as follows.
- Dust recycling benchmarking study;
- Electronic data interchange development project;
- Customer perception survey and best practice benchmarking project (phase I);
- Logistics/transit time performance study;
- Future competitiveness of the narrow strip sector;
- Productivity in the wire drawing sector;
- Steel training benchmarking club—phase II;
- Raw materials supply chains for the automotive components sector;
- Promotion of national vocational qualifications—NVQ—to steel industry small and medium enterprises;
- Health and safety NVQ module.
- Steel in the 21st century conference in July 1996.
In addition, we have run two successful workshops aimed at transferring best practice in benchmarking and electronic commerce across the steel sectors.