While New Zealand’s manufacturing sector saw expansion in activity soften slightly in April, the sector remains in healthy territory, according to the BNZ – BusinessNZ Performance of Manufacturing Index (PMI).
The seasonally adjusted PMI for April was 56.8 (a PMI reading above 50.0 indicates that manufacturing is generally expanding; below 50.0 that it is declining). This was 1.2 points lower than March, but still the second highest value since September 2016. Overall, the sector has remained in expansion in all months since October 2012.
BusinessNZ’s executive director for manufacturing Catherine Beard said that the fundamentals of expansion in the sector remain on track.
“The April value for new orders (62.4) was only slightly down from the March value, with the combined result of the two months the highest for new order expansion since 2004. While production (56.9) dipped in terms of expansion, the remaining indices remained either stable or increased slightly from March”.
“Mirroring the overall result, the proportion of positive comments also dipped somewhat from 67.2% in March to 64.7% in April.
BNZ Senior Economist, Craig Ebert, said “there weren’t any significant jags in the main component detail of the PMI for April, leaving them all looking good. Overall, April’s PMI was another deserving of a big tick”.
