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 (NYSE:JPM) 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.
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