China Factory Gauge Signals Contraction Continued a Fifth Month
- Purchasing managers index rose to 49.7 in December from 49.6
- Services industry indicator climbed to a 16-month high of 54.4
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China’s first official economic report of 2016 suggested manufacturing weakened for a fifth straight month in December, the longest such streak since 2009, even as a separate gauge tracking services rose to the best level in more than a year.
The purchasing managers index edged up to 49.7 last month from a three-year low of 49.6 in November, the National Bureau of Statistics said Friday. That compared with a median estimate of 49.8 in a Bloomberg survey of economists. The non-manufacturing PMI, meanwhile, rose to 54.4, the highest since August 2014. Numbers below 50 indicate deterioration.