This is the May survey, improving further to 58.5

  • prior 56.8

At its highest since January 2016

  • BusinessNZ's executive director for manufacturing Catherine Beard comment: "The May value for new orders (61.2) remained above the 60-point range, and the highest three-monthly level of expansion for that sub-index since 2004. Production (59.7) lifted 2.7 points, while employment (55.3) rose to its highest value since October 2014. Mirroring the overall result, the proportion of positive comments rose to 69.4%, compared with 64.7% in April and 67.2% in March."
  • BNZ Senior Economist, Doug Steel: "the PMI has now pushed up to its highest level in 16 months, which makes the mild slowdown we saw at the beginning of the year a distant memory".

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BNZ / BusinessNZ Performance of Manufacturing Index (PMI)

  • A monthly survey of levels of activity in the New Zealand manufacturing sector