Solid September

Activity in New Zealand's manufacturing sector during September was largely unchanged from the previous month, according to the BNZ - BusinessNZ Performance of Manufacturing Index (PMI). The seasonally adjusted PMI for September was 57.5 (a PMI reading above 50.0 indicates that manufacturing is generally expanding; below 50.0 that it is declining). This was 0.4 points lower than August, but continued to display very healthy levels of expansion. Overall, the sector has remained in expansion in all months since October 2012. Catherine Beard Executive Director ManufacturingNZ BusinessNZ's executive director for manufacturing Catherine Beard said despite some uncertainty in the market, the sector has continued on with business as usual. "It was encouraging to see the proportion of positive comments increase further to 69.5%, compared with 65% in August. In terms of specific comments, a clear proportion of negative comments continued to mention general uncertainty around the election. Positive comments were varied, but a number mentioned increased orders and sales both domestically and offshore". BNZ Senior Economist, Craig Ebert, said that "the manufacturing industry would seem to be forging ahead quite nicely. This was definitely the message in the PMI’s production index for September, while the tone from its new orders index remained relatively upbeat too".