In December, the S and P Global Composite PMI index for worldwide business activity rose again slightly (+0.5 points), reaching 51, its highest level since August 2023. This is the second consecutive month of improvement, after five months of decline. The signal remains encouraging for global activity at the end of Q4 2023. However, this improvement masks a fairly clear divergence between the services sector and the manufacturing sector. In December, the global services index reached its highest level since August 2023 (51.6), while the manufacturing index recorded its lowest level since the same month (49).
In services, the index recovered in December in most countries covered by the survey (except Germany, Ireland and Brazil). At the global level, the following four components (out of the six compiled) are up: ‘new business’, ‘employment’, ‘input prices’ and ‘business expectations’.
The table is very different for the manufacturing PMI: 15 of the 28 countries for which December data is available indicated a decline in the business climate in this sector (12 showed an improvement). At a global level, the decline in the ‘new orders’, ‘output’ and ‘employment’ components are a point of attention. The continued rise since mid-2023 in the component relating to delivery times must also be monitored too, particularly in view of the current tensions on maritime traffic in the Red Sea. In terms of countries, there is a fairly marked decline in the manufacturing PMI in the US, Canada, France, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Poland and India. Conversely, the index is continuing to recover in the Eurozone, Germany, Greece and Switzerland and, to a lesser extent, China
