Press Releases

As part of its efforts to achieve further progress in providing adequate information and data and making them available in due time to monitor the developments of the local economic activities, thus allowing policy makers and interested parties, e.g. investors or relevant international and global organizations, to observe the economic conditions and policies in a manner that fosters informed decision-making, the Central Bank of Kuwait (CBK) developed a questionnaire for the Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI). The said index enables prompt data collection, processing and analyses to be produced in the form of timely and accurate periodic reports reflecting the real developments of the economic activity in the State of Kuwait.

This came in a press statement by the Governor of the CBK, Basel A. Al-Haroon, announcing that the success of this initiative shall be the outcome of the collaboration between CBK and the respondents from the various Kuwaiti economic sectors.

The prominence of the PMI resides in its ability to assess the progress of the economic performance with precision due to its periodicity (on monthly basis). PMI is usually issued before the release of official data on macroeconomic variables to help economists and stakeholders in predicting economic trends in the State of Kuwait. In addition, PMI is considered as one of the most significant economic data in the global markets for better understanding of the different economies’ and markets’ trends. Consequently, many central banks employ the index to make monetary policy decisions.

The CBK PMI’s results are drawn up in a questionnaire that includes (9 index-related close ended questions, 1 close ended question on expectations of business prospects at the local and global levels, and 4 open ended questions). All these questions are addressed to the purchasing managers of a different group of Kuwait-based companies engaged in production and service activities. in addition, PMI, which is scheduled to inaugurate in October 2023, exhibits the trends or changes in the given activity in September 2023. The index’s trends and results shall not be published and shall be for internal use only during the pilot phase (6 months), to be re-assessed before made available to the public. The pilot index will be applied to a small sample of carefully selected companies.

In conclusion, CBK would like to express its gratitude to all participants, hoping for their cooperation in completion thereof for growth of the national economy.