Tuesday 3 July 2012

Global manufacturing shrinks

Global manufacturing activity contracted in June, according to purchasing managers surveys. A report on Monday showed that the JPMorgan global manufacturing PMI fell to 48.9 in June, its lowest reading since June 2009, from 50.6 in May.

Few economies were able to escape the manufacturing downturn in June.

In the US, a report on Monday from Markit showed that its manufacturing PMI fell to 52.5 in June from 54.0 in May. However, another report from the Institute for Supply Management showed that its manufacturing index fell to 49.7 from 53.5.

A piece of good news for the US on Monday, though, was that construction spending rose 0.9 percent in May, hitting its highest level since December 2009.

There was no such silver lining in the data for the euro area on Monday. Manufacturing in the euro area contracted again in June, with the Markit PMI unchanged from May at 45.1. Meanwhile, the eurozone unemployment rate hit 11.1 percent in May, the highest on record, from 11.0 percent in April.

UK manufacturing also stayed in contraction in June, although the Markit/CIPS manufacturing PMI did rise to 48.6 from a three-year low of 45.9 in May.

Manufacturing activity in China also weakened in June. A report from HSBC on Monday showed that its manufacturing PMI for China fell to 48.2 in June from 48.4 in May. This followed another report on Sunday showing that the manufacturing PMI from the statistics bureau and China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing had fallen to 50.2 in June from 50.4 in May.

However, Japan did provide some positive news on Monday. The Bank of Japan's Tankan survey showed that the large manufacturers' sentiment index improved to minus one in the second quarter from minus four in the previous quarter. The index for large non-manufacturing firms rose to eight from five.

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