The CBI's latest industrial trends survey found a further contraction in demand this month and at a slightly faster rate than expected. At minus 20 percent, the headline orders index was 5 percentage points short of the market consensus but just 1 percentage point below its level in January. This was its eighth successive sub-zero print and the weakest of the sequence. Accordingly, the March reading remained slightly below its long-run average (minus 13 percent).

The UK's ECDI and ECDI-P now stand at 6 and minus 2 respectively, both measures still indicating that economic activity in general is performing much as the forecasters anticipated.

The headline orders balance is expected to be essentially flat at minus 15 percent.

The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) produces a monthly survey (and a more detailed quarterly report) analysing the performance of UK manufacturing industry. This is the UK's longest running qualitative business tendency survey. Questions relate to domestic and export orders, stocks, price and output expectations with the main market focus being the domestic orders balance. The survey is seen as a loose leading indicator of the official industrial production data.

Started in 1958, this is the UK's longest-running private sector qualitative business tendency survey. The survey is used by policy makers along with those in the business community, academics and top analysts in financial markets. One of its key strengths is that it is released within ten days and prior to official statistics and includes data not covered by official sources. It is never revised. The data are also used by the European Commission's harmonized business survey of EU countries.

Frequency
Monthly and quarterly