BEIJING: The purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for China’s manufacturing sector came in at 52.1 in November, up from 51.4 in October, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Monday.
The figure marks the ninth consecutive month above of the benchmark of 50 that indicates an expansion in activity on a monthly basis, and beats the estimation of 51.5, which is the median forecast of 22 economists polled by Reuters earlier.
As a pronounced result of bolstering prevention works against the COVID-19 pandemic, China’s economy continues to steadily pick up, said Zhao Qinghe, senior statistician at the NBS, adding that “among the 21 industries surveyed, the number of sectors holding PMI in the expansion range increased to 19, and the manufacturing outlook is booming.” “PMI has continued to beat market expectations, suggesting strong momentum in China’s economic recovery,” Wang Dan, chief economist at Hang Seng Bank (China), told CGTN. In a breakdown, both supply and demand contributed to the figure’s rise. “The improvement was broadly based but led mainly by production and new orders of sub-indices,” said Lu Ting, chief China economist at Nomura. The production index and the new order index were 54.7 and 53.9 in November, increasing 0.8 and 1.1 percentage points on a monthly basis, reaching the high points of the year, according to Zhao. Imports and exports picked up steadily. The new export order index and import index are 51.5 and 50.9, increasing 0.5 and 0.1 percentage points respectively compared to last month, Zhao added. “Foreign new orders improved despite the recurring coronavirus, driven by holiday demand and the reopening of businesses and schools in the U.S. and Europe,” said Wang. The rise in new export order index suggested “strong demand for Chinese products from overseas economies as they remain mired in the pandemic,” said Lu.
However, an extended pandemic outside of China may eventually dampen demand for China’s exports if the purchasing power in overseas economies diminishes and they adjust their manufacturing production to the new normal, Lu added. The price index rose sharply. With the recent general rise in commodity prices and the acceleration of production and procurement activities by enterprises, the purchasing prices of raw materials and product sales in the manufacturing industry have increased significantly this month. The purchase price index and ex-factory price index of major raw materials were 62.6 and 56.5, 3.8 and 3.3 percentage points higher than last month, respectively.
–The Daily Mail-CGTN
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