Factory activity weakened across Asia last month, indices showed yesterday, with China’s manufacturing sector slowing sharply as fears grow for the global economy.
The regional weakness in manufacturing adds to pessimism over the US recovery and continuing eurozone turbulence as Spain’s banking sector looks increasingly fragile.
China’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for manufacturing indicated a steeper than expected slowdown in April, while separate data released by British banking giant HSBC showed a contraction for the same month.
Photo: AFP
The HSBC data marked the seventh consecutive contraction in manufacturing activity and the bank’s chief China economist Qu Hongbin (屈宏斌) said the figure pointed to a slowing of the economy.
“May’s final reading confirmed that manufacturing growth slowed further on weakening demand from both global and domestic markets,” he said.
“This points to a continuous slowdown of the real economy in the second quarter and should promote Beijing to step up easing efforts in the coming months,” he added.
HSBC’s PMI data for last month stood at 48.4 compared with 49.3 in April, as demand slowed in China’s domestic markets and abroad.
The official data showed a smaller than expected expansion in the sector, with the PMI falling to 50.4 from 53.3 in April, according to the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing.
PMI readings above 50 indicate expansion, while a reading below 50 suggests contraction.
PMI data released yesterday for Australia showed its sector falling deeply into contraction territory, down 1.5 points to 42.4 last month.
Indices in Taiwan and South Korea remained barely positive, but both showed growth slowing, with Taiwan’s HSBC PMI falling to 50.5 from 51.2 and South Korea’s falling to 51.0 from 51.9. South Korea also reported that exports declined year-on-year for a third straight month last month.
HSBC’s PMI for Indonesia fell to 48.1 last month from 50.5 in April, led by a decline in new orders.
“The green shoots of recovery that we were seeing a month or so back are wilting away,” Nomura Securities chief Asia economist Rob Subbaraman said.
“The crisis in Europe is one reason; the other one is the China slowdown, but I think less appreciated is that the height of uncertainty about the outlook has caused Asian firms and multinationals in Asia,” he added.
The factory sector in India expanded last month at the same modest rate as in April, HSBC figures showed a day after the release of dire growth data in Asia’s third-largest economy.
India’s PMI was marginally down to 54.8 last month from 54.9 in April.
Official data a day earlier showed that India’s economy grew at a near-decade low of 5.3 percent in the first quarter of the year, well below analysts’ 6.1 -percent forecasts.
“Inflation is still high and capacity remains tight with backlogs of work rising,” HSBC’s chief India economist Leif Eskesen said in a statement.
The Reserve Bank of India reduced rates in April, its first such move in three years, after raising borrowing costs 13 times since March 2010 to curb stubbornly high prices.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last