China’s Nov PMI rises to 51.8
BEIJING: Growth in China’s manufacturing sector unexpectedly picked up last month, despite a crackdown on air pollution and a cooling property market that have been widely expected to weigh on the world’s secondlargest economy.
The upbeat data should help ease concerns, for now, that Beijing’s campaign to curb excess risk in the financial sector and its punishing war on smog could lead to a sharper-than-expected slowdown in China’s economy.
“A lot of people predicted a cyclical slowdown, but we haven’t seen that... it looks like the current momentum can be sustained until at least early next year,” said Zhou Hao, senior Asia emerging markets economist at Commerzbank.
The official Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) released yesterday stood at 51.8 last month, compared with 51.6 in October.
It remained above the 50-point mark that separates growth from contraction on a monthly basis for the 16th straight month.
Analysts had forecast it would come in at 51.4, easing for a second straight month after September’s more than five-year high.
Boosted by hefty government infrastructure spending, a resilient property market and unexpected strength in exports, China’s manufacturing and industrial firms have been a major driver behind the economy’s forecast-beating growth of nearly 6.9 per cent so far this year.
Last month’s strong reading was led by high-tech and consumer goods manufacturing, said statistics official Zhao Qinghe, though he said some traditional industries continued to struggle.
Economists see fourth-quarter economic growth moderating to 6.6 per cent, and slowing to 6.4 per cent next year as borrowing costs rise and the boost from earlier infrastructure projects begins to fade.