New Zealand’s manufacturing sector continued to show higher levels of activity for September, although remained in contraction, according to the latest BNZ – BusinessNZ Performance of Manufacturing Index (PMI).
The seasonally adjusted PMI for September was 46.9 (a PMI reading above 50.0 indicates that manufacturing is generally expanding; below 50.0 that it is declining). This was up from 46.1 in August, and the third consecutive month showing a higher level of activity compared with the previous month. However, the sector remains firmly in contraction that now extents to 19 consecutive months, and well below the average of 52.6 since the survey began.
BusinessNZ’s Director, Advocacy Catherine Beard said that the good news was that the PMI is now at its highest result since April. The bad news though was that it appears to be a long and slow road to get the sector back into positive territory.
“The key sub-index results for Production (48.0) and New Orders (47.8) were the highest since April 2024 and November 2023 respectively, while Finished Stocks (46.6) also nudged up from the previous month. However, both Employment (46.6) and Deliveries (45.6) were slightly down from August”.
The proportion of negative comments from respondents stood at 63.5% in September, which was down from 64.2% in August, 71.1% in July and 76.3% in June. Negative comments typically focused most heavily on a lack of orders and sales.
BNZ’s Senior Economist Doug Steel said that “while all sub-indices remain well below their historical average, four of the five series have moved closer to breakeven in the last three months since June”.
