US manufacturing activities touched the lowest level in three years (Credit : REUTERS)

US manufacturing activity slips to lowest level

Siti Fatimah Adri
Politics & Economic
Economic
Jul 02, 2019
2492
United States (US) manufacturing activities touched the lowest level in three years, or exactly 32 months. Weak demand activities are thought to be main cause of slowdown in manufacturing developments.

On Tuesday (2/7), US Supply Management conducted a monthly survey which resulted in many factories reducing their production. That was because they were worried that the items they produced wouldn’t sell. Reporting from AFP, results of this survey came together with a drastic decline in regional manufacturing. Timothy Fiore, Chair of the ISM Manufacturing Survey, said that the weakening of this demand was very disturbing. Usually, even though it goes down, they will go up again, then go down again, and go up again. But this time no. There is only a decrease. According to him, US economic recovery has actually been seen starting 10 years since the global financial crisis. But that doesn't seem to be going on for long. This is due to Trump's aggressive trade policies making it difficult to predict.

Now, ISM national manufacturing index has fallen 0.4 points to 51.7 percent. This makes it the lowest level since October 2016. This is also evident from the slope of new orders, shipments, inventories and imports.

Previously US President Donald Trump had drawn a threat regarding the imposition of tariffs on imported goods from Mexico. According to survey results, many respondents complained about tariffs in various sectors, such as electronics, chemical products, fossil fuels, machinery, and metal goods.

Otherwise, manufacturing activities in several Asian countries have begun to recover since last month. Even so, this increase still tends to falter because global demand is still weakening.

Source: https://www.cnnindonesia.com/ekonomi/20190702072826-532-408143/manufaktur-as-sentuh-level-terendah-dalam-3-tahun-terakhir