AA / Tunis
Financial ratings agency Standard & Poor’s Global (S&P) said on Wednesday that the UAE’s Purchasing Managers’ Index fell last September for the first time in three months.
The company added in a report that the index in the UAE fell to 56.1 points last month from 56.7 points in August.
The report said the non-oil private sector economy in the UAE maintained improving business conditions, also driven by a further strong increase in new business volume at the end of the third quarter of the year.
He points out that the growth rate of new orders was slightly lower than the August level, the highest in the space of 9 months.
The majority of companies surveyed indicated that market conditions had improved, in addition to an increase in sales thanks to efforts to keep prices within reach of customers.
Sales from abroad also increased in September, although they were modest.
Strong demand encouraged businesses to increase business activity sharply, although the rate of expansion slowed from August’s level, which was the highest in 38 months.
Slightly more than a quarter of companies increased their production during the month of September, against a drop of 4%.
The report adds that strong customer demand and the backlog of projects have led companies to continue to face pressure on their production capacity, which has led to a sharp increase in backlogs.
Non-oil companies in the United Arab Emirates recorded a further increase in hiring, which was broadly similar to that recorded in August.
Purchases of inputs also rose to the highest in more than three years, as companies sought to increase their inventories of raw materials in anticipation of continued growth in new orders.
*Translated from Arabic by Malèk Jomni
Only part of the dispatches, which Anadolu Agency broadcasts to its subscribers via the Internal Broadcasting System (HAS), is broadcast on the AA website, in a summarized manner. Please contact us to subscribe.