Singapore’s PMI contracts in February
By Linette Lim |
Posted: 04 March 2013 2339 hrs
SINGAPORE : Singapore’s Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) dipped 0.8 points month-on-month to 49.4 in February.
A PMI reading below 50 indicates a contraction in the manufacturing economy.
However, economists said there is no need to be overly concerned over the month-on-month drop.
After rushing to meet production orders in January, Singapore’s manufacturers took a breather over the Lunar New Year break in February.
Lower orders, production and employment resulted in the seasonal dip in PMI.
Song Seng Wun, regional economist at CIMB Research, said: “This is consistent with other economies that had a break for Chinese New Year. We saw a similar moderation in manufacturing activities in Taiwan, we saw that in China as well.
“But we will be looking at it on a sort of aggregate basis – January, February numbers collectively. If you look at that on aggregate, it looks like overall, manufacturing activities in Singapore and around the region (are) more or less showing signs of stability.”
After adjusting the data for Lunar New Year, CIMB Research said the global manufacturing picture is one of a modest recovery.
Regional PMIs for South Korea, Japan, Indonesia, India and Australia rose in February, in line with the readings in the US, Germany and France.
Economists said this global pick-up will benefit Singapore, particularly its engineering and biomedical sectors.
Jeff Ng, an economist at Standard Chartered Bank, said: “We should see some pick-up in the quarters ahead, especially by the end of the year.
“Some upsides to the manufacturing story will be the improvements in terms of the domestic demand in both the US and the China markets, given that China is already one of the biggest trading partners with Singapore – it is about second or third in terms of ranking.”
At the same time, the electronics sector PMI for February surprised with its first gain in five consecutive months.
It rose 2.2 points month on-month to 52.1.
But economists said it is too early to gauge if this uptick can be sustained, and expect the Singapore electronics sector to continue to underperform its regional peers – like Taiwan – which have a greater proportion of manufacturers that supply smartphone components.
- CNA/ms
<!– one Tag : Channel News Asia In Text
innity_pub = “66368270ffd51418ec58bd793f2d9b1b”;
innity_ one = “12251″;
innity_width = “**”;
innity_height = “**”;
innity_country = “SG”;
–>
Singapore"s PMI contracts in February
No comments:
Post a Comment