British industry hurt by costs

LONDON - Ratan Tata, the chairman of Tata Group, has said that British industry is being hit by costs and a "dying" supply chain, in an interview with a British newspaper published on Wednesday.

India's Tata group owns Jaguar Land Rover, Tata Steel and Tetley Tea in Britain, and operates 19 companies with a 45,000-strong workforce across Europe, according to its website.

"The economic situation, the high cost of undertaking manufacturing, the supply chain - which is dying out as manufacturing undergoes hardship - make the UK not the first place you would look at to make a manufacturing investment," Tata told the Daily Telegraph.

British manufacturing continued to shrink in November, according to surveys released on Monday, just two days before the UK finance minister, George Osborne, outlines his half-yearly budget statement.