The November results of CAINTRA's Economic Expectations Survey show that Nuevo Leon's manufacturing sector continues to contract in its production indicators.

In particular, the indicator related to "capacity utilization" was at 43.06 points, showing the largest contraction with respect to 46.07 of the previous month. The "new orders" index also decreased, reaching 41.65 points; thus, being the indexes farthest away from the expansion threshold.

The lower orders are associated with a lower "physical volume of production", as well as lower "inventories" and "imports". In the case of the former, a drop of around 1.4 points is observed, reaching 43.44 units.

In contrast to the previous ones, the "number of workers" grew 0.61 points, with a small rebound in the month of November. However, the increase was insufficient to exceed 50 points.

On the price side, respondents again reported a contraction in "prices of their products", where the index reached 48.8 points. On the other hand, the "price of raw materials" index continues to expand, with 56.82 points.

The proportion of companies that reported having invested in machinery or equipment in November stood at 18%, down from the previous month and the second lowest figure of the year.

Regarding the factors that hindered companies during November, "weak economic activity" was the most mentioned option by more than half of the respondents, with an increase of 9.3 percentage points compared to the previous month. "Political outlook" no longer led the responses, but remained with 43.3% of the mentions.

Among the obstacles mentioned by the companies, the reduction of "shortage of trained personnel" stands out, mentioned by 14.2% of the respondents, moving out of the top positions in which it remained last year, but it remains within the top 7 of obstacles.

Los indicadores de expectativas buscan conocer de forma cualitativa la situación coyuntural de la industria manufacturera de Nuevo León, mediante la perspectiva de los directivos de las empresas en diversas variables relacionadas con su operación. Para ello, a los empresarios se les cuestiona mes con mes cómo se comportó una lista de variables con relación al período anterior, teniendo la posibilidad de responder: mucho menor, menor, igual, mayor, mucho mayor. Con esto, se elabora un índice cuya importancia radica en que, si el número obtenido se encuentra por arriba de 50 puntos, la variable se encuentra en expansión; pero si está por debajo de esta magnitud, significa una contracción.

CAINTRA Nuevo León