NORTH EAST - Economy
Changing Structure of the Region?s Economy
The post-war history of the North East region was characterised by a base in traditional mining and manufacturing industries and a comparatively low level of small and medium-sized enterprises.
Of the 75,000 VAT and/or PAYE registered business sites in 2002, 44,000 were large enough to be registered for VAT and just under 90 per cent employed less than 20 people. For the UK as a whole just over 90 per cent employed less than 20 people.
The region has received significant levels of overseas investment. Development Corporations and now the Regional Development Agency have been influential in attracting major investment projects from multi-national companies such as Avecia, British Airways and Samsung.
In 2001, the North East region contributed 3.3 per cent to the total Gross Value Added (GVA) of the United Kingdom (excluding Extra-Regio). GVA per capita in the North East was £11,019, the lowest of all regions and countries of the United Kingdom.
Since 1995, the amount of activity in the agriculture, forestry and fishing industries has declined, although the decline is less marked than it is for the UK as a whole.
The manufacturing industry contributes about a quarter to the total GVA of the region, compared to less than a fifth at the UK level. Continued manufacturing investment in the region includes a further expansion of the Nissan car plant at Sunderland, which has stimulated further investment from suppliers such as Magna Kansie, Electronics and microelectronics feature strongly with companies such as LG, Filtronic and Atmel. The Chemicals industry continues to be well represented in the Tees Valley with companies such as Huntman, Dupont and BASF.
The value added of the service industries represents around two thirds of total regional value added compared to around three fifths in 1995. Major developments in the banking and insurance sectors include the establishment of the Automobile Association's Insurance Services Headquarters. Call centres are well represented with companies such as Orange, One 2 One and BT all present in the region. Major retail distribution developments include the Retail Park on Team Valley Trading Estate in Gateshead, the Eldon Square Shopping Centre in Newcastle and the Metro Centre, one of Europe?s largest indoor shopping centre.
Transport
The most important road links run north-south and include the A1 and A19 trunk roads and a motorway, the A1(M), through Durham. The A69 Newcastle to Carlisle and the A66 Middlesborough to Penrith are the main east west routes. There are 16 thousand km of roads in the North East region, of which 58 km are motorways. Despite nearly 94 thousand private cars registered in 2001, the region has the lowest level of car ownership in the UK at 35 per cent.
The east coast main line provides a fast inter-city rail service connecting the region with London and Edinburgh. A light rail (Metro) service also operates mainly in Tyneside but also links Newcastle to Sunderland.
Newcastle and Teesside airports provide domestic and European scheduled services and international destinations for charter flights. Around 3.4 million passengers arrived at or departed from the airports in the region in 2001. This represents an increase of over 40 per cent since 1996, although it accounted for only 2 per cent of all arrivals and departures in Great Britain. Around 800 tonnes of air freight was lifted from the airports in the same year.
Main seaports include Tees, Hartlepool and the Port of Tyne, the latter providing car/passenger ferry services from Newcastle to Norway, Sweden and Holland.In 2001, 35 million tonnes of foreign and domestic freight were shipped from the region and 21 million tonnes were shipped into the region.
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