The Australian dollar has risen on improved global sentiment due to positive economic data in the US and China.

In morning trade, the local unit was trading at 103.99 US cents, up from 103.71 cents on Thursday. The Aussie is now trading higher than before the last rate cut by the Reserve Bank in early October.

Westpac New Zealand senior market strategist Imre Speizer said sentiment had begun to rise on Chinese manufacturing data released on Thursday, and this continued overnight with US job figures.

‘‘It appears that economic data around the world is starting pick up a little bit,’’ he said. ‘‘That’s why share markets and some commodities and currencies like the Aussie went up.’’

There were 158,000 new private sector jobs added to the US market in October, according to the ADP payrolls report released on Thursday.

Mr Speizer said this data indicated that the bigger non-farm payrolls number due for release on Friday night could come out better than expected.

‘‘ADP is a new and improved private sector payrolls report,’’ he said.

‘‘It supposedly has a stronger relationship with the non-farm payrolls, and it does suggest that number will be higher than previously thought.’’

On Thursday, China’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) data rose to 50.2 in October, indicating that the country’s manufacturing sector is expanding, after three months of contraction.