BANGKOK—A survey of factory managers in China shows manufacturing contracted in December in the latest sign the country’s economy remains sluggish.
The official purchasing managers index, or PMI, fell to 49 last month in what officials said was evidence of weak demand, the National Bureau of Statistics reported on Sunday. It was the third straight month of contraction. The PMI is on a scale up to 100 where 50 marks the cutoff between expansion and contraction.
The index has fallen in eight of the past nine months, with an increase only in September. In November, the index was at 49.4, down from 49.5 the month before.
In recent months, the Chinese regime has raised spending on construction of ports and other infrastructure, cut interest rates, and eased curbs on home-buying to try to stimulate the domestic demand that economists say is needed to sustain growth.
Global demand for manufactured goods has suffered as central banks around the world have raised interest rates to battle decades-high rates of inflation. Price pressures have eased in recent months, but demand has yet to rebound to prepandemic levels. That has ramifications across the region since supply chains linked to China are scattered across many Asian countries.
China’s non-manufacturing PMI rose in December to 50.4, the statistics bureau reported. The service sector PMI sub-index was 49.3, however, unchanged from November’s reading.
Despite a slump in the housing market brought about by a crackdown on excess borrowing by property developers, the construction industry is thriving: the sub-index for that sector climbed to 56.9 in December, well into expansionary territory, from 55 in November, the report said.
