U.S. manufacturers consumed $153.7 million worth of cutting tools during November 2015, a decline of 13.0% from the October figure, and down 11.3% from the November 2014 total. Through 11 months of consumption data, U.S. manufacturers’ cutting-tools purchases are is down 4.1% compared to the January-November 2014 total.
The figures are drawn from the monthly Cutting Tool Market Report (CTMR), jointly issued by the U.S. Cutting Tool Institute (USCTI) and AMT - the Association for Manufacturing Technology. Cutting tool consumption is an indicator of manufacturing activity, because cutting tools are “the primary consumable (product) in the manufacturing process,” the CTMR sponsors maintain.
“Caution is the word for the start of 2016,” commented Brad Lawton, chairman of AMT’s Cutting Tool Product Group. “The continuation of negative performance as the figures show plus the global tensions of China’s economy and the rising value of the dollar dampen the industry’s thoughts of improvement”.
The slowing Chinese economy is having a broadly negative effect on industrial production, consumption, and investments. According to Tanya Bodell, executive director at Energyzt, an energy-industry analysis group, “The combination of low economic growth worldwide, but especially in China, combined with continued oil production has created a glut in oil supply that could continue to depress investment for at least the next year.”
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