Bad News Piles Up for China's Economy
By Dexter Roberts on June 04, 2012
Bloomberg.com
Bad tidings for manufacturing and services, and weakening consumer confidence: China sure packed a lot of disappointing economic news into just a few days. And it’s certain to strengthen recent calls in China for renewed stimulus measures, including through rapid approvals of new infrastructure projects and more credit easing.
First came the release of China’s dueling manufacturing indexes on June 1, “now among the world’s most-closely watched pieces of economic data,” according to London-based Capital Economics economists Qinwei Wang and Mark Williams in a May 31 note. “Manufacturing weakening more than initially thought” and “further disappointment,” concluded Capital Economics, after the data were announced.
While the official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index, published by China’s National Bureau of Statistics and its logistics federation, showed a slight expansion, it was still a dramatic drop from the previous month. The survey of 820 companies came in with a reading of 50.4, compared with 53.3 in April, “much lower than anticipated,” wrote Wang and Williams. (A reading above 50 shows a growing sector; below 50, a manufacturing contraction.)
More: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-06-04/bad-news-piles-up-for-chinas-economy
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