Manufacturing Sector Grew at Slower Rate in May

• Manufacturing Sector Grew at Slower Rate in May ―CBN

The Central Bank of Nigeria said the nation’s manufacturing sector grew at a slower rate in May.

According to the May edition of the CBN’s Purchasing Managers’ Index report, the manufacturing sector has been increasing for 14 consecutive months.

“The Manufacturing PMI in May stood at 56.5 index points, indicating expansion in the manufacturing sector for the 14th consecutive month. The index, however, grew at a slower rate when compared to the index in the previous month,” it said.

The report showed that the Manufacturing PMI stood at 56.9 index points in April.

The CBN said the PMI survey, which was conducted by its statistics department, had respondents from the purchasing and supply executives of manufacturing and non-manufacturing organisations in 31 locations in Nigeria.

The report stated that orders and inventories grew at a slower rate, while production level, supplier delivery time and employment level grew at a faster rate in May 2018.

According to the report, a composite PMI above 50 points indicates that the manufacturing /non-manufacturing economy is generally expanding, 50 points indicates no change, while below 50 points indicates that it is generally contracting.

It said a trend analysis of the composite PMI in the last 14 months showed a decrease of 0.92 per cent, 0.54 per cent, 3.37 per cent, and 1.75 per cent in August 2017, October 2017, January 2018 and February 2018, respectively, with January recording the highest decrease.

The report said, “Fourteen of the 18 subsectors recorded growth in the following order: utilities; agriculture; professional, scientific, and technical services; arts, entertainment and recreation; finance and insurance; health care and social assistance; information and communication; real estate rental and leasing; educational services; electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply; wholesale/retail trade; water supply, sewage and waste management; management of companies; transportation and warehousing.”

It said the public administration and repair, maintenance/washing of motor vehicle subsectors remained unchanged, while the accommodation and food services and construction subsectors recorded contraction in the review period.