Manufacturing activity during November showed little in the way of Christmas cheer for manufacturers, according to the Business NZ Performance of Manufacturing Index (PMI).
The PMI for November showed a value of 52.3. Although this showed slight expansion and up from a decline in October, the result was in stark contrast to the strong expansionary November values for the previous three years, which ranged from 64.4 to 65.9. Scores above 50 indicate that activity is expanding; below 50 indicate a decline.
Activity by region did not show any real pattern between the two islands for November. The Central region (57.7) recorded the highest level of expansion for the first time since May 2005, while the Otago/Southland region (46.5) went from leading the regions for the previous three months to recording the lowest value in November. Both the Canterbury/Westland (54.3) and Northern (50.7) regions recorded some expansion during the month.
Production (53.9) led the sub-indexes in November, closely followed by stocks of finished products (53.7). Both new orders (52.4) and employment (51.3) showed some expansion, while deliveries (50.0) showed no change.
Comments from manufacturers show that the continued high value of the New Zealand dollar is causing significant issues for export oriented manufacturers, with some now finding their exports unprofitable. There is little mention of the Christmas period leading to increased activity, instead a period of further slowing.
Print