Economy contracts for the third month in Sept

The economy contracted for the third straight month in September, even though production activities ticked up from the August level, according to the purchasing managers’ index.

The Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Policy Exchange launched the index early this year with support from Singapore and UK government.

Hopefully, the industrial production sector returned to growth in September, while the remaining three key sectors of the economy contracted.

Even though the overall economic output has stayed in the contraction territory since the outbreak of unrest in July, activities have been gradually returning to normal, according to the PMI.

In July the PMI was 36.9 points, sharply down from 63.9 points recorded in June. But since then, the score has been rising with 43.5 recorded in August and 49.7 recorded in September.

PMIs are calculated on a scale of 100 points, where anything below 50 signifies contraction and points above mean growth.