The U.S. Chemical Production Regional Index (U.S. CPRI) was lower by 0.2% in October, following a revised 0.3% decline for September, according to the latest Weekly Chemistry and Economic Report from the American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com).
Measured on a three-month moving average basis, chemical production showed that gains in the output of fertilizers, organic chemicals, chlor-alkali and synthetic rubber were offset by lower production of inorganic chemicals, pharmaceuticals, manmade fibers, industrial gases, coatings, acids, consumer products and plastic resins. Chemical production overall remained ahead of where it was a year ago at this time in all regions.
Looking abroad at the autumn forecast of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD; Paris; www.oecd.org), the ACC said the forecast “suggested that the uncertain future of U.S. fiscal and monetary policy poses growing risk to the global economic recovery.”
“This marks a shift from the OECD’s focus of the last few years on the Euro area,” ACC adds.
In ACC’s survey of economic forecasters, the expectations for economic growth in 2014 was downgraded by 0.1%, but the outlook is still for further gains, and the outlook for 2015 is positive, ACC said.