Business activity in Wales continued to contract last month as output and new orders fell again. The latest PMI data from NatWest Bank saw output across the Welsh private sector decline in October as firms linked the decrease to weak client demand and economic uncertainty.
The Wales Business Activity Index - which measures the month-on-month change in the combined output of the manufacturing and service sectors - registered 49.1 in October (the start of the fourth quarter), up from 47.7 in September. Anything below 50 denotes contraction.
Welsh firms, which recorded a slower fall in output than the UK as a whole, said this was due to the arrival of delayed inputs and the processing of backlogs of work.
