New Zealand’s manufacturing sector saw further steps into expansion for October, according to the latest BNZ – BusinessNZ Performance of Manufacturing Index (PMI).
The seasonally adjusted PMI for October was 54.3 (a PMI reading above 50.0 indicates that manufacturing is generally expanding; below 50.0 that it is declining). This was 2.7 points higher than September.
BusinessNZ’s Director, Advocacy Catherine Beard said that the increased activity for October was fairly evenly spread across the sub index values.
“The key sub-indices of Production (54.0) and New Orders (53.9) were both in positive territory for the first time since July. Like the last national lockdown, Deliveries (59.9) led the way towards catching up on activity, although Employment (52.1) fell back to its lowest result since February.”
“In addition, the proportion of negative comments from respondents dropped to 55.4% for October, compared with 71% in September and 78% in August.”
BNZ Senior Economist, Doug Steel stated that “even though October’s reading is above average, we’d classify it more in the realm of some recovery from a large hit rather than an indication of outright strength.”
