UK manufacturing growth accelerated in February to its fastest pace in seven months but remained well adrift of its rate of expansion in the first half of last year, a survey has shown.
The survey, published by the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS), also shows a renewed fall in UK manufacturers' export orders last month.
CIPS's headline purchasing managers' index for the UK manufacturing sector, which measures changes in output, new orders, employment, suppliers' delivery times and stocks of goods purchased, rose from 53.1 in January to 54.1 in February on a seasonally-adjusted basis.
While climbing further above the level of 50 deemed to separate expansion from contraction, the manufacturing PMI is significantly adrift of its levels in the first half of 2014.
CIPS's new export orders index for UK manufacturing fell from 51.2 in January to 49.2 in February. According to the survey, the level of incoming export business has now fallen in four of the past five months.
There were reports from some firms linking weaker inflows of new export business to the sterling exchange rate.
The pound has recently been hitting seven-year highs against the euro, making UK manufacturers relatively less competitive in markets in the single currency zone.
Rob Dobson, senior economist at survey compiler Markit, said: "The UK manufacturing sector is reviving in early 2015 after the slowdown seen late last year, as growth rates of both production and new orders continued to strengthen in February."
However, he added: "Scratching beneath the surface and we see a lopsided upturn, with the prime driver being a strong upsurge in new orders and production at consumer goods producers while a near-stalling of demand for plant and machinery points to ongoing weak business investment.
"Separately, the appreciation of sterling is holding back the progress of UK exporters. It seems that, despite years of talk about a rebalancing of growth, we are still seeing only limited headway in moving away from consumer-driven expansions and towards a greater contribution from exports."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article