China's Private Manufacturing PMI Drops 0.6 Points in October... Expansion Slows

Recorded at 50.6, falling short of Reuters and Bloomberg forecasts

Bloomberg News reported on November 3 that the expansion of China's manufacturing activity slowed last month.

According to data released the same day by RatingDog, a private Chinese research institute, and S&P Global, China's manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) for October stood at 50.6, down 0.6 points from the previous month's 51.2.

Fruit sorting process at a factory in Baoji City, Shanxi Province, China. Photo by Xinhua News Agency

Although the index remained in expansion territory, it fell short of both the median forecast of 50.9 from economists surveyed by Reuters and the average forecast of 50.7 compiled by Bloomberg.

The PMI is an indicator based on surveys of corporate purchasing managers and reflects business conditions in the relevant sector. A reading above 50 indicates expansion, while a reading below 50 signals contraction.

The RatingDog index, previously published by Chinese financial information provider Caixin in collaboration with S&P Global, is considered to better reflect the business conditions of private, export-oriented, and small and medium-sized enterprises compared to the PMI released by the National Bureau of Statistics.

Previously, on October 31, the National Bureau of Statistics of China announced that the official PMI for October had dropped to 49.0, down 0.8 points from the previous month's 49.8. The index has remained in contraction for seven consecutive months since April, marking the longest period of contraction in nearly nine years.

This survey was conducted at a time when U.S. President Donald Trump had announced plans to impose an additional 100% tariff on Chinese goods. Subsequently, a U.S.-China summit was held, and the United States stated it would reduce the fentanyl-related tariffs on Chinese imports by 10 percentage points.

Xie Dongming, Head of Asia Macroeconomic Research at OCBC Bank, said, "With the extension of the U.S.-China trade truce and expectations for a recovery in export orders, there is a possibility that the manufacturing PMI will gradually rebound over the next few months as business confidence recovers."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.