Vietnambiz has covered S&P Global’s latest Purchasing Manager’s (PMI) Index which went over 50 for the first time in the last six months. The report (found here) puts Vietnam’s PMI at 50.5 up from 48.7 in July. It notes that this may not necessarily signal the sector is in recovery mode pointing out that ‘demand conditions remain fragile’. The report also found that the size of the workforce continued to contract, that backlogs of work were continuing to decrease, and that input costs and output prices had also risen.
This fits inline with an op-ed for The Investor last week, in which VinaCapital’s chief economist Michael Kokalari, suggested the worst of the manufacturing downturn might be coming to an end citing reduced inventories in the US.