Factories use more of their capacity in May, year on year
This was mainly due to lower maintenance downtime, with only a slight pick up in demand.
The use of production capacity by large manufacturers with turnover greater than R100m per year was at 81.6% in May 2016, compared with 80.3% in May 2015, an increase of 1.3 percentage points, the data showed.
Five of the 10 manufacturing divisions showed increases in utilisation of production capacity. The divisions with the highest rates of utilisation of production capacity were petroleum, chemical products, rubber and plastic products (84.7%); radio, television and communication apparatus and professional equipment (84.3%); motor vehicles, parts and accessories and other transport equipment (83.1%); food and beverages (82.4%); and wood and wood products, paper, publishing and printing (82.2%).
The results of the quarterly manufacturing utilisation of production capacity survey are used to assess the degree of capacity constraint experienced in the manufacturing industry.