Manufacturing sector rebounds in June

Saturday, 16 July 2016 00:01 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The manufacturing sector has bounced back in June according to the Sri Lanka Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) survey done by the Central Bank.

It said the Manufacturing PMI recovered to the positive territory in June 2016 registering 55.1 index points, from the contraction observed in the last two months, which is an increase of 7.2 index

points from May 2016.

This improvement was bolstered by the significant increase observed in Production and New Orders Indices. Moreover, all the Sub-indices of PMI, apart from Suppliers’ Delivery Time increased compared to the previous month.

Overall data points to an expansion where all the sub-indices apart from the Employment Index are above the neutral 50.0 threshold.

The expectations for activities also indicated an improvement for the next three months. On year-on- year basis, the PMI index witnesses a marginal drop of 2.4 index points compared to June 2015.

The Services Sector PMI for June recorded 56.3 index points, compared to 58.1 index points in May 2016, indicating that economic activities continued its expansion, albeit at a slower rate compared to May 2016. On year-on-year basis PMI declined by 8.7 index points in June 2016.

This slowdown in expansion of activities was observed across new businesses, employment, backlogs of work and expectations for activity sub-indices. Business activity sub-index increased marginally in June compared to May 2016. Prices charged decelerated in June compared to month-on-month increase recorded in May 2016.