BCA seeks member support to launch new economic indicator THE Business Council of Australia has partnered with mining giant Rio Tinto and policy think-tank the Melbourne Institute to pioneer the launch of a new national economic indicator to rank alongside those used to benchmark activity in the world's biggest economies. The acting chief executive of the BCA, Maria Tarrant, has this week written to all BCA member companies seeking their support for the launch of a new Purchasing Managers Index in Australia to measure activity across a broad section of the economy. Rio chief executive Sam Walsh has agreed to be patron of the initiative, while a new BCA-convened PMI taskforce will be chaired by former Packer family executive and Myer Family Company deputy chairman Peter Yates. Mr Yates is also chairman of the Faculty of Business and Economics at Melbourne University, which includes the Melbourne Institute, and the taskforce will include key executives from the institute, Rio and other BCA member companies and representatives of the Australasian branch of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply The London-based CIPS partners with the Markit group to conduct PMIs for more than 30 countries, while the Institute for Supply Management conducts PMIs for the US. The new Australian index will be known as the Melbourne Institute-Purchasing Managers Index (MI-PMI). "Overseas, such indices are considered a valuable tool for economists in projecting economic performance," Ms Tarrant says in the letter, obtained by The Australian. These indices are compiled from the supply side of business through procurement managers. It largely aims to measure anticipated changes in production and is well respected globally as an indicator of economic activity," Ms Tarrant adds. The BCA is seeking your support to allow the PMI taskforce to engage with your chief financial officer and chief purchasing officer to provide the data required from BCA companies to create the MI-PMI. The data required is limited, but sensitive and confidential in nature. The Melbourne Institute has significant experience in capturing sensitive data and then releasing the aggregated data in a market-sensitive manner. The Australian Industry Group and PricewaterhouseCoopers produce an Australian Performance of Manufacturing Index, a seasonally adjusted national composite index based on qualitative data provided by small and medium enterprises in the manufacturing industry.