Asia's industrial slowdown is bottoming out

The November manufacturing sector PMIs in India, Taiwan, and Korea, which were published today, all climbed relative to October. Strong intra-regional trade and the pick-up in domestic demand are offsetting the weakness in the West, and growth in the manufacturing sector should gain more traction in coming months. Australia’s manufacturing PMI for November was released today too and stayed poor. Compared to emerging Asia, the story here is very different. Manufacturing is being held back by the high level of interest rates, the strong Aussie dollar, and private sector balance sheet rebuilding.