- Overall, the recovery in demand and output growth had strengthened a little further.
- Early feedback from contacts about forward guidance had been broadly positive, with a number of contacts indicating an increase in confidence that interest rates would remain low, providing some support to the recovery.
- Annual growth in consumer spending had increased, in part due to a period of good weather, but with underlying consumer confidence also reported to have risen.
- Activity in the housing market had continued to rise.
- Investment intentions had edged higher, though continued to point to modest growth in capital spending overall.
- Growth in manufacturing output had edged up a little, both for the domestic market and for export.
- Business services turnover growth had picked up, largely due to increasing activity within professional and financial services.
- Construction output had continued to strengthen as house-building activity rose.
- Corporate credit availability had been little changed.
- Employment intentions pointed to a slight increase in staffing over the coming six months.
- Capacity utilisation was expected to increase slightly in coming months, though a margin of spare capacity remained.
- The annual rate of growth in labour costs per employee had been broadly unchanged.
- Annual growth in materials costs had remained subdued and moderate inflation in imported finished goods prices had continued.
- Inflation in manufacturers’ output prices and business services prices remained muted.
- Consumer price inflation had remained moderate.
Published on
18 September 2013
Other Agents' summary of business conditions
This page was last updated 31 January 2023