(MENAFNEditorial)
JAKARTA February 4 2015— Indonesian manufacturing sector continued to slowdown at the first month of 2015 as business conditions deteriorated for the fourth consecutive month in January.
HSBC Indonesia Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) released on Monday (2/2/2015) recorded low of 47.6 to 48.5 in January. It remained consistent with a moderate deterioration in business conditions at the start of 2015.
Su Sian Lim ASEAN Economist at HSBC said that manufacturing activity had started the year on a soft note not surprising considering that the PMI had generally been weakening since August 2014.
Weak external demand continued to pose the largest drag she added with the new export orders sub-component falling to a record low in January.
“Nevertheless there are still signs that while manufacturing sector conditions are likely to remain soft in the coming months the sector is stabilizing” Lim said as cited on a release compiled by Markit Economics Monday (2/2/2015).
Notably she stated the rate of job shedding in January was only fractionally higher than in November and December. Furthermore although work backlogs continued their long-running contraction the slack in capacity was stable compared to December.
She hopes the low price of crude oil will persist in the coming months and provide a boost to the manufacturing sector.
According to her although input prices continued to rise they did so by a smaller extent than in December in part because the government's decision to abolish fuel subsidies resulted in lower pump prices. This may have contributed to the stability of output prices in January. READ MORE..
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