Factories report export orders at strongest in years - Telegraph

Factories report export orders at strongest in years - Telegraph

Increasing numbers of new orders and moth-balled projects getting the go-ahead supported another month of expansion in the sector's activity, according to the monthly purchasing managers' index (PMI) from Markit/CIPS. That helped employment across the sector as a whole rise for the first time since June last year.

Overall, the PMI came in higher than expected with a headline reading of 54, signalling a pick-up in the expansion rate from the previous month's 53.3, where anything above 50 signals growth. The PMI showed "decent but unspectacular" activity, said Howard Archer, chief UK economist at IHS Global Insight.