The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) released its monthly manufacturing survey on Wednesday, which revealed the UK’s factory order book balance fell to +1 in March 2019 from +6 in the previous month. This was still comfortably above the long-run average of -13%.

Economist had forecast the reading to come in at+2.

According to the report, expectations for output growth over the next quarter reduced softly (to +7 from this month from +8 in February), while export order growth accelerated (to +8 from +1). In addition, the present stocks of finished goods rose further (to +11 from +10) and expectations for price inflation for the coming three months weakened noticeably to their slowest pace since September 2016 (to +7 from +22).