Australia - AIG Performance of Manufacturing index.
- That's 10 months in expansion for this index
- With this month's dip from last month, there is a little weakness evident in some of the details
- For example: New orders slipped to 52.1 this month (down 9.6 points from March's reading); Employment fell by 4.3 points from March to slip into contraction at 49.0 for April
Key findings from AiG:
- Longest unbroken period of growth for the Australian PMI since September 2006
- The depreciation of the Australian dollar in recent years is still a central source of strength, assisting growth in exports and import-competing sales
- Of the seven activity sub-indexes in the Australian PMI all expanded in April except employment.
- Five of the eight manufacturing sub-sectors expanded in April (three month moving averages), the same number as March.
- Comments from manufacturers in April reveal mixed conditions, with demand subdued in some sectors. Tight margins and increasing competition are recurring themes. The recent rebound in the Australian dollar as well as the extended Easter holiday period appear to have taken some steam out of 2016's recovery to date. Pessimism about the economy, the upcoming Federal election and a lack of large infrastructure projects is also hindering local demand. More positively the partial recovery in some commodity prices (such as iron ore) is reviving interest in some sectors
