China’s manufacturing activity rises to multi-month high in Oct

PanARMENIAN.Net - China’s manufacturing activity rose to a multi-month high in October, according to rival business surveys released on Thursday, Nov 1, bolstering the view that the world’s second largest economy has turned the corner, MarketWatch reports.

Underscoring the improvement, gauges of new orders tracked by the government and a rival private sector survey both showed conditions were expansionary.

The official Purchasing Managers’ Index, released by the National Bureau of Statistics along with the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing, printed at 50.2 on a 100-point scale, compared to 49.8 in September, but slightly lower than expectations of 50.3 in a Reuters poll of economists.

The private-sector PMI released by HSBC, indicated activity firming to an eight-month high of 49.5, up from a final reading of 47.9 in September, and higher than an initial “flash” survey of 49.1 released last week.

The HSBC PMI survey, which tends to focus more on small-and-medium-sized companies, said its new orders subindex showed expansion for the first time in a year, with survey respondents saying the improvement was driven in part by interest from a new customer base.

Tempering the result, however, new export orders signaled contraction for a sixth straight month, with demand from the U.S. and Europe remaining weak, according to HSBC.

“China’s industrial activity continues to bottom out following a modest pickup last month,” HSBC economist Hongbin Qu said in a note accompanying the PMI. “This is mainly driven by the increase of new orders, thanks to the filtering-through of the earlier easing measures, while exports outlook remains challenging.”