The output of the UK’s manufacturers showed an increase in May.
There had been a distinct slowdown in April.
According to figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), output registered a 1.8 per cent rise in May. During the previous month, it had fallen by 1.6 per cent.
The state of the UK manufacturing sector has been widely hailed as a measure of how successful the economy is in re-balancing away from consumption and spending towards production and saving.
The news, however, was not so good once the wider measure of industrial production, which includes utilities, was taken into account.
It rose by 0.9 per cent in May, lower than had been predicted. The rise was not sufficient to balance the 1.7 per cent decline seen in April.
