Chinese factory activity falls for the fifth consecutive month
The National Statistical Office (ONE) indicated that Chinese factories showed a new contraction in August
China’s manufacturing activity contracted again during the month of August, as reflected by the PMI manufacturing index, which stood at 49.7 points from 49.3 the previous month, thus accumulating five consecutive months below the stability threshold of 50 points, according to data published this Friday by the National Statistics Office (ONE).
Despite a new contraction in activity in August, trends point to a slight improvement in the sector, underpinned by the recovery observed in the production sub-index, which was 51.9%, with an increase of 1.7 percentage points compared to the previous month, which indicates that the expansion of manufacturing production has increased.
Likewise, the data for new orders has also improved in August, with a reading of 50.2%, compared to 49.5% in July, suggesting an improvement in demand, while the employment sub-index was 48%, a slight decrease of 0.1 percentage points from the previous month, indicating that the employment boom in manufacturing companies is basically stable.
As for the non-manufacturing sector, the PMI for August has reduced its expansion to 51 points from 51.5 in July, its worst reading since December 2022.
In this sense, the data for new orders was 47.5%, compared to 48.1% the previous month, which indicates that the demand in the non-manufacturing market has decreased.
By sectors, construction new orders moderated their decline to 48.5% from 46.3% the previous month, while the services industry new orders PMI was 47.4%, a decrease of 1 percentage point compared to July.
Source: dpa
(Reference image source: Extend, dpa)
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