The BNZ-BusinessNZ Performance of Manufacturing Index (PMI) slid under water in May, showing signs the manufacturing sector is beginning to contract.<\/p>\n
The PMI for May was 49.9. A PMI reading above 50.0 indicates the manufacturing sector is generally expanding, while a reading below 50.0 indicates it’s declining.\u00a0<\/p>\n
May\u2019s PMI was 0.5 points lower than April\u2019s 50.4, and below the long-term average of 52.5 over the history of the survey.<\/p>\n
May\u2019s PMI is the lowest monthly reading since June 2025 when the PMI fell to 49.3.<\/p>\n
BusinessNZ director of advocacy Catherine Beard said it was disappointing to see the PMI slip back into negative territory, even though May\u2019s reading was only just under 50.0.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cManufacturers are obviously struggling in the face of a combination of adverse influences, including lack of customer demand, high fuel prices<\/a> and the conflict in the Middle East,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Beard said the finished stocks and delivery sub-indexes of the May PMI had readings of 53.8 and 51.9 respectively, which suggested that firms were adding to their stocks of finished goods and getting deliveries out the door. But production and new orders remained flat with readings of 50.0 and 50.1.<\/p>\n The May PMI\u2019s results also showed that micro-firms \u2013 which the PMI classifies as those with 0-10 employees \u2013 were struggling the most, reporting a sub-index reading of just 46.0.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, at the other end of the scale, large firms \u2013 those with 101+ employees, according to the PMI \u2013 were performing strongly, with a sub-index reading of 57.6.<\/p>\n BNZ head of research Stephen Toplis said BNZ believes the manufacturing sector is likely to go through a \u201cflat patch\u201d during winter.<\/p>\n \u201cBut, Middle East willing, we still think the broader economy can pick up some momentum at the tail end of this year so there is no reason to believe manufacturing will be an exception,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The manufacturing industry makes up 10% of New Zealand\u2019s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The GDP figures for the March quarter are set to be released next Thursday. The Reserve Bank has forecast a 1.0% quarterly climb, following on from the reported 0.2% rise in the December quarter<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n ANZ and Westpac are also forecasting an increase of 1% in GDP growth in the first three months of the year, while BNZ anticipates 0.9%, ASB expects 0.8% and Kiwibank is predicting 0.7%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The BNZ-BusinessNZ Performance of Manufacturing Index (PMI) slid under water in May, showing signs the manufacturing sector is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11065,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,219,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-475248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}