MNI BRIEF: China Aug PMI Contracts For Fourth Straight Month
MNI (BEIJING) - China's Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index contracted for a fourth straight month in August, registering 49.1, down from July’s 49.4 reading, as extreme weather and the off-season weighed, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed Saturday.
The production and new orders sub-indices fell by 0.3 and 0.4 points, to 49.8% and 48.9%, both below the breakeven 50 mark. The decline in headline PMI was mainly attributed to the weak performance of high-energy-consuming industries' PMI, which fell 2.2 points to 46.4, the NBS said.
Non-manufacturing PMI registered 50.3, up 0.1 points from the previous month. The business activity index in the service sector increased by 0.2 points to 50.2, driven by summer holiday consumption. Railway and air transportation as well as culture, sports and entertainment services stood above 55.0, but capital and real-estate market services continued to run below 50.0, the NBS said.