UAE - Mubasher: The UAE’s seasonally adjusted Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) increased to 56.6 in April 2023 from 55.9 last March, according to the latest S&P Global PMI data.

The business conditions at non-oil private sector firms across the UAE enhanced at a sharp and accelerated rate during April. The new orders index rose to its highest level since November 2021 in April due to the solid sales performance, driven by improving market conditions and growing client demand.

Meanwhile, the reading highlighted that a steep increase in new work boosted activity growth, which led the output levels across the non-oil economy to expand at the sharpest rate for six months in April.

Strengthening demand conditions improved purchasing and confidence levels during the last month. As for the purchasing side, the latest data marked a surge in input buying that was much sharper than in March 2023.

David Owen, Economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said: "The UAE PMI rose for the third month running in April to signal an even stronger rate of expansion across the non-oil economy, driven by rapidly increasing new orders and retreating inflationary pressures.”

“The relatively mild uptick in business expenses encouraged a number of companies to offer price promotions, which helped to drive an upturn in sales that was the sharpest recorded since late-2021,” Owen highlighted.

He added: "Companies maintained their efforts to build capacity levels, resulting in another marked expansion of input stocks.”

“Rising demand and rapid capacity improvements helped to drive confidence towards future activity higher for the fourth successive month and to its strongest level since September 2022,” the economist concluded.