Global economic growth surges to 15-year high as COVID-19 lockdowns ease

The following is an extract from IHS Markit's monthly PMI overview presentation. For the full report please click on the link at the bottom of the article.

Global economic growth accelerated to the fastest for 15 years in May as economies continued to open up from COVID-19 related restrictions. At 58.4 in May, up from 56.7 in April, the JPMorgan Global PMI™ (compiled by IHS Markit) struck its highest since April 2006. The latest expansion took the recent run of growth into its eleventh consecutive month.

The acceleration in global growth was led by the service sector, which expanded at a rate not seen since 2006. Manufacturing also continued to expand at one of the strongest rates seen over the past decade, albeit losing slight momentum. The outperformance of the service sector so far in the second quarter has coincided with COVID-related restrictions easing globally to the lowest since last September. June is set to see these containment measures ease further to the lowest since the pandemic began. Manufacturing's relatively weaker performance was in part linked to supply chain delays.

Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist, IHS Markit

Tel: +44 207 260 2329

chris.williamson@ihsmarkit.com

© 2021, IHS Markit Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.

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Purchasing Managers' Index™ (PMI™) data are compiled by IHS Markit for more than 40 economies worldwide. The monthly data are derived from surveys of senior executives at private sector companies, and are available only via subscription. The PMI dataset features a headline number, which indicates the overall health of an economy, and sub-indices, which provide insights into other key economic drivers such as GDP, inflation, exports, capacity utilization, employment and inventories. The PMI data are used by financial and corporate professionals to better understand where economies and markets are headed, and to uncover opportunities.

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This article was published by S&P Global Market Intelligence and not by S&P Global Ratings, which is a separately managed division of S&P Global.