West Midlands industry has been hit harder than manufacturing across the UK generally by the near-collapse in both home and export sales reported by the British Chambers of Commerce.

The region’s providers of services, though, fared better than those elsewhere in several respects.

The BCC’s survey for the last quarter of 2008 showed West Midlands manufacturers reporting a decline in home orders outnumbering those with an increase by 61 per cent. That was down 32 points from the previous survey and 13 points below the national average.

In export sales, an adverse balance of minus 27 per cent was down by 19 points from a relatively resilient third quarter and 15 points worse than the UK average. A big loss of confidence in the latest quarter among the region’s manufacturers drove the adverse balance of those expecting their turnover to fall this year to minus 50 per cent.