Absa PMI

Business Confidence Index
Consumer Confidence Index
Purchasing Managers' Index
Building Confidence Index
Civil Confidence Index

Absa PMI

The Absa Purchasing Managers’ Index™ (PMI™) compiled by the BER and sponsored by Absa, is based on the widely used and highly regarded PMI produced by the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) in the USA.

The headline PMI is calculated as the weighted average of the following indices (weights in parentheses): Business Activity (0.20), New Orders (0.20), Employment (0.20), Supplier Deliveries (0.20) and Inventories (0.20). Note that the inverse of the Supplier Deliveries index is used in the PMI calculation .The survey from which the indices are compiled require the respondents to indicate each month, whether a particular activity (e.g. production) for their company has increased, decreased or remained unchanged.

The indices are then calculated by taking the percentage of respondents that reported an increase and adding it to one-half of the percentage that reported no change. This results in an index for which a value of 50 indicates no change in the activity, a value above 50 indicates increased activity and a value below 50 indicates decreased activity.

Download this file for more details of the South African manufacturing PMI as well as definitions to use with the interpretation of the survey questionnaire (updated November 2020).

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Absa PMI, December 2025

Date Uploaded: January 08 2026 11:00


The Absa PMI decreased further by 1.5 points to 40.5 points in December 2025, remaining firm in contractionary territory. However, it is important to note that an unusually sharp decline in the inventories index, as well as a steep decline in the employment index, were the main drivers of the weaker headline reading. New sales orders were barely changed from November and remained at a subdued level, while business activity actually improved sharply during the month, albeit remaining below the 50 mark.