Most April Manufacturing PMI's Show a Lessening of Contraction: India's and China's Show Expansion

Manufacturing activity around the world appears to have stopped contracting.Markit Economics reported today that the diffusion indexes representing the opinions of purchasing managers in manufacturing in a number of countries have continued to show improvement in April. As the attached charts show, the PMI's in countries in Eastern Europe and in the Far East reached their low points at the end of last year. Those in Western Europe reached their low points early this year.

The best showing has been in the Far East. The PMI for India reached 53.27% in April, putting manufacturing in India in an expansion phase. China with a PMI of 50.05% has just inched into the expansion phase. Although Japan's PMI of 41.42% indicates that manufacturing in Japan is still contracting, the degree of contraction is well below that reached at the end of last year. The first chart shows the PMI's for India, China and Japan.

Like Japan the PMI's in Eastern Europe suggest that degree of contraction in manufacturing in Russia, Poland and the Czech Republic is slowing, but they are still below the expansion phase, as shown in the second chart.