Sharp rise in business activity leads to Asian sectoral growth, transportation remains worst performer

Strong performance in business activity led to sectoral growth in the Asian economies, with General Industrial registering the sharpest improvement in business activity of all the monitored sectors to place top of the output league table.

According to Nikkei’s Asia Sector PMITM data, complied by IHS Markit, 14 out of the 19 detailed sectors experienced output growth during November. However, this was slightly down from the 17 sectors that recorded an expansion in business activity during the previous month.

Of the 19 detailed sectors covered in the survey, three saw their output slip from growth to contraction territory during November. These included real estate, insurance and healthcare services, with output at the latter two sectors declining to such an extent that they dropped to the bottom-two positions in the output league table.

Following closely behind in second position was the other industrial services constituent sector, commercial & professional services, which reported a marginally faster rate of output growth, while automobiles & auto parts also recorded a sharper rise in production to occupy third place. Other notably solid performers included metals & mining, banks and forestry & paper products, with all three sectors raising their output at a faster extent than in October.

Finally, transportation, which was the worst-performing sector in October, recorded a weaker pace of output contraction in November to lift itself from the bottom ranking. Meanwhile, construction materials experienced the sharpest outperformance from its long-run trend during November.