Manufacturing and service output in emerging market economies surged last quarter at the fastest pace since the fourth quarter of 2007, the latest HSBC emerging market index (EMI) showed yesterday.
The quarterly index, a weighted composite indicator derived from the bank’s surveys of purchasing managers’ indexes in 13 emerging countries including Taiwan, stood at 56.1 last quarter, up from the previous quarter’s 55.3 and 43.8 a year ago.
With production surging, driven by exports and rising demand, emerging countries are well-positioned to lead the global economic recovery, the bank said in a press statement.
The improvement in these countries’ output was recorded predominantly in manufacturing, with export orders last quarter recording their largest increase since the first quarter of 2005, it said.
“The driver of the global economy continues to shift to the East and we are seeing emerging nations becoming increasingly dependent on each other rather than on the economies of developed countries,” the bank’s chief economist, Stephen King, said in the statement.
Among the 13 economies, China plays a key role given its rising demand for commodities and other goods are keeping prices high and thus bolstering the export earnings of other countries, the statement said.
As growth picks up, employment in emerging markets is also rising, hitting a four-year high last quarter, the survey found.
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