The steady fall in the critical confidence balances this year, for both manufacturing and services, is extremely worrying and requires an urgent policy response.
The alarming manufacturing figures, the decline in confidence balances across all sectors, and the fall in all the export balances are the most disturbing features of the Q3 results,
The manufacturing sector's position worsened sharply and across the board. The service sector domestic balances remain weak, and there was only modest improvement following the sharp losses seen earlier in the year.