S&P said UK manufacturing’s rapid expansion may be temporary after the final May PMI rose to 53.9 from 53.7, a four-year high. S&P said much of the upswing reflects firms front‑loading purchases to hedge expected price rises and delivery delays tied to the Middle East/Iran conflict, creating a marked divergence from the broader economy. Domestic uncertainty, including a continued challenge to Prime Minister Starmer’s leadership, could begin to weigh on consumer spending and corporate decisions.

The Standardization Administration of China, Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Water Resources, Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the People’s Bank of China and the National Energy Administration jointly issued a notice promoting nine methods for assessing standards implementation effectiveness. The methods were distilled from 25 assessment activities carried out by 58 organizations. The agencies say wider use of these evaluation methods will strengthen oversight of standards implementation, shift focus from whether standards exist to whether they are used and deliver results, and better leverage standards to support high-quality development.

A Kazakh minister said Tengiz oilfield crude production has recovered to 290,000 tonnes per day, about 2.13 mln barrels per day.