Beijing (AFP), Dec 31 – <\/i>China’s manufacturing activity contracted sharply in December for the third month in a row, according to official figures released Saturday, despite Beijing’s loosening of Covid restrictions at the beginning of the month.<\/p>\n
The Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) — a key gauge of manufacturing in the world’s second-biggest economy — came in at 47 points, down from November’s 48 and well below the 50-point mark separating growth from contraction, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics.<\/p>\n
For more than two years, China had insisted on a zero-Covid strategy of stamping out outbreaks with strict quarantines, lockdowns and mass testing — a hardline policy that reverberated across the global economy.<\/p>\n
On December 7, Beijing abruptly loosened pandemic restrictions, but despite that, the country is still struggling to recover due to a surge in Covid cases.<\/p>\n
“In December, due to the impact of the epidemic and other factors… China’s economic prosperity has generally declined,” NBS senior statistician Zhao Qinghe said in a statement.<\/p>\n
“The epidemic has had a significant impact on business production and demand, staff presence, logistics and distribution.”<\/p>\n
The index has not been in positive territory since September, and December’s figure was lower than the 47.8 reading predicted by Bloomberg analysts.<\/p>\n
Zhao, however, struck a note of optimism in his statement.<\/p>\n
“As the epidemic situation gradually improves, the market trend is expected to pick up later,” he wrote.<\/p>\n
China’s zero-Covid strategy was based on widespread testing, strict monitoring of movement, and quarantine for those testing positive.<\/p>\n
Those measures, which led to unannounced plant closures, disrupted supply chains and forced some companies to close permanently.<\/p>\n
For its part, the non-manufacturing PMI — which includes the services and construction sectors — also contracted further this month, to 41.6 points from 46.7 in November.<\/p>\n
The government has set a growth target of about 5.5 percent this year, after reaching its goal of over 8 percent in 2021.<\/p>\n
But many economists now consider the 2022 target unrealistic.<\/p>\n
China will unveil its gross domestic product (GDP) performance for the year in January.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Beijing (AFP), Dec 31 – China’s manufacturing activity contracted sharply in December for the third month in a row, according to official figures released Saturday, despite Beijing’s loosening of Covid restrictions at the beginning of the month. The Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) — a key gauge of manufacturing in the world’s second-biggest economy — came […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12327,"featured_media":713939,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2242,2083],"coauthors":[141],"class_list":["post-713929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-china","tag-covid"],"yoast_head":"\n