The EU Non-Energy Extractive Industry And Raw Materials Supply - Extended Abstract

European industrial policy seeks to provide the right framework conditions to allow companies to develop and innovate and to make the EU an attractive place for job creation. This includes providing the basis for a competitive manufacturing industry which provides around 20% of EU economic output and employment for about 34 million people. The EU non-energy extractive industry with an annual turnover of around ?40 billion and a direct workforce of about 270,000 people is considerably smaller, but it plays a vital role in providing much of the manufacturing sector with raw materials. It also supplies very large quantities of minerals such as aggregates and natural stone to the construction industry, facilitating the development of modern infrastructure such as roads, railways, houses, schools and hospitals. However, despite an active extractive industry, Europe is increasingly dependent on imports of raw materials and particularly metallic ores and concentrates. In 2005, the trade deficit for minerals was in excess of ?11 billion, of which ?10 billion related to metallic minerals. Such import dependency is not a new phenomenon, but the rapid industrialisation of developing countries such as China and India has significantly increased global demand, resulting in large price increases for downstream industries and at times, bottlenecks in supply. The impact of this and other competitive pressures on some sectors of the European manufacturing industry, including the possibility of them being lost to lower cost countries outside Europe, has moved the issue of industrial policy and access to raw materials up the political agenda. A number of measures have already been announced by the European Commission to address these issues including: - The analysis of the competitiveness of individual industrial sectors, in order to understand their specific needs and take account of the particular opportunities and challenges they face.