Passing Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam Leads the Region in The PMI Index | ANT Consulting

Vietnam’s Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) has risen from 51.8 in August to 53.3 in September. Nikkei evaluated that the business conditions of the month had a strong improvement, achieving the best speed since April. Accordingly, the health of this field is positive during the past 22 months.

Ranking the countries according to the PMI index of the month, Vietnam continued to lead the overall growth list with the PMI index rising to a high in September. The Philippines advanced to the second position with 50.8 points, although overall growth is still light.       

Indonesia with 50.4 points indicates that business conditions continue to be improved while Thailand has rebounded to 50.3 points after a decline in the previous two months. After the improvement last month, Malaysia (49.9 points) recorded almost unchanged production conditions in September. Meanwhile Singapore (48.6 points) fell into the decline. Myanmar (49.4 points) continue to have weak business conditions, although the speed of decline is light.

Analyzing the reasons for growth in Vietnam, according to the Nikkei, customer demand increased and new orders increase as a result. This is the most significant increase in 5 months. Order growth rate also improved sharply in September.

Thanks for that, inventories also fell for the third month in a row, the biggest drop since July.

Production output of Vietnam has also increased in 11 consecutive months. All three areas of the market have increased production, led by companies producing consumer goods.

In terms of input costs, Nikkei noted that due to rising raw material prices, including raw materials from China, input costs rise significantly, the strongest since May 2011. Therefore, in September 2017, for the first time in 5 months, companies must increase output prices.

According to Mr Andrew Harker from IHS Markit, the company that collected the survey results evaluated that the third quarter ended with a positive note for Vietnamese producers. As a result, manufacturers may continue to grow in the last quarter. Nevertheless, he noted that Vietnam should be cautious as inflationary pressures reappeared.