Singapore PMI dipped to 50.8 in March

But electronics PMI inched higher.

According to DBS, Mar14 PMIs did throw up a slight disappointment. Market was eyeing for an uptick in the headline number but the final outcome was a modest dip of 0.1 to 50.8.

Here's more:

Plainly, this is consistent with the recent trend in the PMIs of our key markets (i.e., US, EZ and China), which have all been fairly flat and with a slight downside bias.

Almost all the sub-indexes have moderated. And this is consistent with our view that manufacturing activities are more likely to move sideways than anywhere else in the coming months. Ultimately, global economic conditions are improving but very subtly.

However, the key surprise is that electronics PMI has inched a notch higher despite all the signs of further easing in the previous month. Upticks in the new orders and production indexes are suggesting fresh new orders.

While we believe overall production will remain in the expansion level going forward, the sustainability of such strong showing is in doubt against the backdrop of unfavourable trends in the global semiconductor sales and the SEMI book-to-bill ratio.

Reaching the people who run Asia's businesses is harder than it used to be.

Inboxes are crowded. Attention is short. The executives you most want to reach — the founders, CFOs, and operators who actually move budgets — are the hardest to find through the usual channels. If you're building a company, a category, or a reputation, you already know this.

We've spent twenty years building the room they read. Singapore Business Review is where senior decision makers in Singapore and across Southeast Asia come for business coverage they can't get elsewhere — in print, online, and in person at the summits and roundtables we host across seven markets.

If you have something these readers should know about — a point of view worth publishing, a product worth their attention, an event worth their time — we'd like to hear what you're trying to do.

Book a meeting

| Or download the media kit (PDF)

240,000 senior readers quarterly in print Top 1,700 Singapore companies reached

7 markets across Southeast Asia