China’s official purchasing managers index (PMI), the bellwether of large industrial firms, inched up to 49.9 in February, up by 0.1 percentage points over a month earlier, according to data released by China’s National Bureau of Statistics.
The output sub-index fell by 0.3 percentage points to 51.4, affected by the weak activity during the Chinese New Year holiday.
The new order sub-index went up by 0.2 percentage points to 50.4.
This year’s Chinese New Year is particularly late,on February 19, while normally it happens between Mid-January and the beginning of February. This means March data can be impacted as well, and the January and February average readings may still have a small upside bias as the basis of 2014 is lower due to the holidays, says a research report by Goldman Sachs Gao Hua.
