Fastest rise in new orders in 3 yrs drove Russian manufacturing expansion in March - HSBC
MOSCOW. April 1 (Interfax) - the Russian manufacturing sector continued to build on its positive start to 2011, survey data compiled by Markit for HSBC suggested, HSBC said in an analytical note.
Output continued to grow sharply, as new orders increased at the strongest pace for three years.
The headline HSBC Russia Manufacturing PMI, a composite index designed to track overall business conditions - improved further in March, rising to 55.6. That was the highest figure since August 2006, and rounded off the best average reading for any quarter since Q1 2008. Following a lacklustre trend in 2010, the PMI has remained above its long-run average of 52.2 for the past four months. Any figure greater than 50.0 signals improvement, below 50.0 contraction.
New order growth continued to gain momentum in March. The latest increase was the strongest in three years, and extended the current sequence of expansion to twelve months. Data suggested that domestic demand was a key driver of business growth, as new export orders increased at the slowest pace in the current four-month sequence.
Output growth remained strong in March, and was close to its fastest in three years. Firms continued to work through existing workloads, as backlogs fell overall for the eighteenth month running.
The Russian manufacturing workforce expanded for the sixth month running in March. The current sequence is the longest in three-and-a-half years.
Input price inflation eased for the second month running in March, but remained sharp overall. A wide range of raw materials and energy continued to be reported as having become more expensive during the month. As a result, manufacturers raised their output prices at the second-fastest rate for over two-and-a-half years in March.
Purchasing growth was maintained at the second-fastest rate in around three years in March. The volume of inputs held in stock in the manufacturing sector continued to fall overall, but at the weakest rate signalled by the survey for over thirteen years. This reflected efforts by a number of companies to build reserves in anticipation of the supply chain disruption resulting from the Japanese natural disaster.