2008

Manufacturing failed to grow in May, according to the nation’s supply executives in the latest Manufacturing ISM Report On Business.

According to the report, the manufacturing sector failed to grow in May as the PMI fell below 50% for the fourth consecutive month.

In relative terms, May was down slightly from April as the rate of contraction in manufacturing slowed. The Production Index was a bright spot as it moved above 50% after declining for two months.

Manufacturers find themselves caught between rising costs and weakening demand in many industries. Exports continue strong due to the weak dollar — without the weak dollar the story would be much more negative in manufacturing.

Daniel Meckstroth, chief economist for the …

Source: Statistics Canada

In April, a second consecutive strong monthly increase in petroleum prices caused indexes for manufactured goods and raw materials prices to reach record levels in Canada.

From March to April, prices charged by Canadian manufacturers, as measured by the Industrial Product Price Index (IPPI), rose 1.4%. While down slightly from the 1.8% increase observed in March, the growth in prices remained strong for a second consecutive month, pushing the IPPI above its last historical peak reached in April 2007. This increase was almost entirely driven by petroleum and coal products, which continued their upward climb with an increase of 7.9%, similar to the rate recorded in March.

Prices of other IPPI products, …

Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property in the U.S. -increased at an annual rate of 0.9 percent in the first quarter of 2008, according to preliminary estimates released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the fourth quarter, real GDP increased 0.6 percent.
 
The GDP estimates released today are based on more complete source data than were available for the advance estimates issued last month. In the advance estimates, the increase in real GDP was 0.6 percent.
 
The increase in real GDP in the first quarter primarily reflected positive contributions from personal consumption expenditures (PCE) for services, exports of goods and services, federal government spending, and private inventory investment that were …

China’s trade surplus declined by 8%, from $62.9 billion to $58 billion, from January-April 2008 compared year-over-year with 2007, the result of higher oil prices and other crude materials imports, yet the surplus for manufactures surged by 34%, according to a Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI analysis of Chinese trade data for the first four months of the year. China’s worldwide trade surplus in manufactured goods is on track to rise from $444 billion in 2007 to $586 billion in 2008.
 
Ernest H. Preeg, MAPI Senior Fellow in Trade and Productivity and author of India and China:  An Advanced Technology Race and How the U.S. Should Respond, also notes that the Chinese surplus was down by 2% with the U.S. but rose by 26% …