China’s factory activity unexpectedly expanded at the quickest pace in almost three years last month, with solid increases in output and new orders, a private business survey showed yesterday.
However, business confidence slipped and companies were reluctant to replenish their inventories, worried about the uncertain outlook for demand and the prolonged US-China trade dispute.
The Caixin/Markit Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) rose to 51.8 from 51.7 in October.
That marked the fastest expansion since December 2016, when it was 51.9.
The 50-point mark separates expansion from contraction on a monthly basis.
Economists polled by Reuters had expected it to dip to 51.4.
Zhong Zhengsheng (鍾正生), director of macroeconomic analysis at CEBM Group, said domestic and overseas demand rose last month.
“Manufacturing investment may be lingering near a recent bottom,” Zhang wrote in a release accompanying the data.
“If trade negotiations between China and the US can progress in the next phase and business confidence can be repaired effectively, manufacturing production and investment is likely to see a solid improvement,” he said.
China’s official factory activity gauge on Saturday also surprised, returning to growth for the first time in seven months as domestic demand picked up in response to stimulus measures, but gains were slight and export orders sluggish.
The official survey focuses more on heavy industry than Caixin’s, which is believed to include firms that are more export oriented. The two surveys also cover different geographical areas.
The Caixin survey showed total new orders and factory production remained at buoyant levels last month, although they both eased slightly from record highs in the previous month, when they grew the fastest in more than six years and nearly three years, respectively.
The sub-index for new export orders came in at 51, marginally below that in October, when it was the highest since February.
Resilience in the sector led to a notable recovery in the labor market, with companies adding workers for the first time in eight months.
However, profit margins remained under pressure, with input costs continuing to rise while output charges fell, suggesting some firms are still cutting their prices due to fierce competition for sales.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained