Singapore's manufacturing PMI at its highest since November 2014

It increased by 0.8 points to 51.8 in August.

Singapore’s manufacturing PMI rose for the third straight month to 51.8 (+0.8 points) in August, and analysts at OCBC said this is the highest print since November 2014 and the 12th consecutive month in expansion territory (>50).

"The optimism came from almost all indicators, including new orders, new exports, factory output etc.," OCBC said.

Here's more from OCBC:

This domestic manufacturing PMI largely mirrored the improvements in regional manufacturing PMI readings. The electronics PMI also improved by 1 point to 53.2 in August, which is the highest since November 2919 and marked the 13th straight month of expansion (>50).

The improvement was also broad-based. In general, global semiconductor companies have generally benefited from healthy demand for consumer electronics, data center activities fueled by cloud demand, as well as gearing up for the iPhone 8 production cycle (marking its 10-year anniversary) and consumers’ upgrading demand to mid- to high-end smartphones and other large-screen phablets.

This global electronics momentum is likely to sustain in the coming months as well, although at current elevated domestic PMI prints, the upside may be relatively limited from here.

We upgrade our 2017 manufacturing growth forecast from 4.7% yoy to 5.8% yoy, given that the first seven months’ performance was already a stellar 10.1% yoy, and leading indicators like the manufacturing and electronics PMIs remain very healthy. Consequently, we also upgrade our 2017 GDP growth higher from 2.5% yoy to 2.7% yoy.

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