01/05/2019
Commenting on today’s PMI figures, Francesco Arcangeli, Economist at Make UK said:
“After swerving to avoid falling over the no-deal cliff-edge twice in the last two months, businesses got back to normal in April, reducing their stockpiling activities and consequently pushing production activities back to more usual levels after output had been artificially boosted by emergency stock build-ups in January and February.
“However, this slower output is also a reflection of increasingly weak demand and growing job losses. In particular demand from overseas has been hit particularly hard with several overseas customers reducing their British supply chains to divest themselves of their reliance on the UK market.
“This is a clear wake-up call for the government to make sure that time is not wasted in solving the Brexit impasse so we can avoid another cliff-edge climb down in October.”