China’s manufacturing activity contracted for a second straight month in June while services activity expanded at the slowest pave in five months, showed an official survey on Sunday.
The manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for June came in at 49.5, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), unchanged from the previous month, below the 50-mark separating growth from contraction and in line with a median forecast of 49.5 in a Reuters poll.
While a sub-index of production was above 50 in June, other indexes of new orders, raw material stocks, employment, supplier delivery times and new export orders were all in contractionary territory, the NBS data showed.
The sub-index for production reached 50.6 in June, falling by 0.2 percentage point from the previous month, while the sub-index for new export orders fell 0.1 percentage point to 49.5, with the sub-index for new export orders unchanged at 48.3.
Driven by sliding commodity prices and sluggish demand, the prices of raw material prices fell 5.2 percentage points to 51.7, and the sub-index for factory-gate prices fell by 2.5 percentage points to 47.9, returning to contraction.
Sluggish demand further slowed companies’ procurement, with the sub-index falling by 1.2 percentage point to 48.1, remaining in the contractionary territory for the second straight month, while the sub-index for raw material inventory fell by 0.2 percentage point to 47.6.
The non-manufacturing PMI, which includes services and construction, fell to 50.5 from 51.1 in May, marking the lowest since December, showed the data. In breakdown, the services PMI sank to 50.2, marking a five-month low, and construction PMI slipped to 52.3, the weakest reading since July last year.
The composite PMI, which tracks both manufacturing and non-manufacturing activities, fell by 0.5 percentage point to 50.5, marking the lowest level this year, showed the data.
