Manufacturing PMI rose 1.8 points in February 2011
After retreating for the last two months, manufacturing PMI rose to 52.3.
According to OCBC, PMI was boosted by the pick-up in new export orders (+1 point to 51.1 into expansion territory again), as well as higher overall new orders, production and inventory gauges. The employment and order backlog gauge also both crossed back into expansion territory at 52.5 (+3.1 points) and 54.1 (+6.1 points) respectively, while the input price index surged 2.1 points to 54.7.