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Birmingham used to be known as the city of a thousand trades but with rival industries overseas and the lack of interest many people have in where their goods are produced, the same cannot be said of Birmingham today.

There doesn't seem to be a month that goes by without a report being published or either a government minister or business leader advocating the need for British industry to be willing to become more competitive or innovative.

There is no doubt that we are still in challenging times. Our industry faces the threat of increased competition from parts of the world where the costs of production - especially that of labour - mean that it is becoming harder and harder to maintain customers who can purchase cheaper alternatives.

The days when there were people like my dad who only ever bought a British car (Austins and Rovers) are long gone. In the contemporary world we make our decisions based on achieving value through maximising the level of quality (never the easiest word to define) and features available whilst minimising the price we pay.

I would suggest that, sadly, people are largely uninterested in where the goods were produced.

Nonetheless I believe that most consumers would happily buy British goods as long as there is no more effort required in finding them and, crucially, they don't cost any more.

It has to be acknowledged that in a world of plenty it is unlikely to turn the clock back to the time when imports were largely made up of goods that we were unable to produce domestically.

That said, there is no reason why our producers shouldn't strive to enhance the features of what they produce.