Markit Economics, in association with HSBC, has just released China’s Flash PMI for January, which came in at 49.6 (versus 50.5 in December) – a six month low. China’s Flash China Manufacturing Output Index also came in at 51.3 in January (versus 51.4 in December) – a three month low.
Looking at the internals, you can see that almost all categories worsened in January:
According to HSBC’s chief China economist, Hongbin Qu:
“The marginal contraction of January’s headline HSBC Flash China Manufacturing PMI was mainly dragged by cooling domestic demand conditions. This implies softening growth momentum for manufacturing sectors, which has already weighed on employment growth. As inflation is not a concern, the policy focus should tilt towards supporting growth to avoid repeating growth deceleration seen in 1H 2013.”
The Aussie dollar dropped half a cent on the result:
