A drop on the month (data for March) for the NZ manufacturing PMI
- 52.2 from 53.3 (revised from 53.4) in February
- second consecutive fall
Still in expansion, but slowing a little.
BusinessNZ's executive director for manufacturing Catherine Beard:
"On a positive note, the proportion of positive comments in March (55.1%) picked up from both February (51.4%) and January (50.7%). Those who provided negative comments typically noted a lack of finding the right staff, reduced orders (both domestically and offshore) and general uncertainty in the market.
BNZ Senior Economist, Craig Ebert:
- "the weak spot in March's PMI was its production index. With a seasonally adjusted outcome of 50.8 this was close to stalling. Compare this to February's 53.7 and the exceptionally high reading of 61.0 back in November and a sense of sharp deceleration arises".
NZD doing little, it tends not to do much at all on this data point.
