Impending U.S. tariffs threaten to impede development, China’s manufacturing activity grew at its quickest rate in a year in March, indicating Beijing’s stimulus measures were supporting an economic recovery.
Nearly 800 million people have been pulled out of poverty since China started to open up and reform its economy in 1978, and GDP growth has averaged over 9% annually since then. Over the same time frame, there have also been notable advancements in the availability of health, education, and other services.
China is currently a nation with an upper-middle income.
Even though China eliminated extreme poverty in 2020, 17.0% of the population was predicted to be living below the World Bank’s Upper-Middle-Income Country (UMIC) poverty level in 2021, which is $6.85 per day (in 2017 PPP terms).
According to National Bureau of Statistics data issued Monday, the official purchasing managers’ index reached 50.5 in March, which was in line with Reuters poll predictions and the fastest expansion since March of last year.
As production resumed following the Lunar New Year vacation, the PMI index jumped to over the 50-level threshold — which distinguishes growth from contraction — in February, coming in at 50.2, after contracting at 49.1 in January.
Manufacturing supply and demand improved, as evidenced by the March sub-indices for production and new orders, which both slightly increased to 52.6 and 51.8, respectively.
At 48.2, the employment reading was lower than it was the month before.
Julian Evans-Pritchard, head of China economics at Capital Economics, wrote in a note that the PMI readings indicated “infrastructure spending is ramping up again and that exports have so far remained resilient in the face of U.S. tariffs.”
The PMI for non-manufacturing activity, which includes construction and services, increased to 50.8, the highest level in three months, according to the statistics bureau.
With decreases observed in the construction and services sectors, the employment sub-index of the non-manufacturing PMI fell to 45.8, indicating a slack labor market across all surveys.
The benchmark CSI 300 index for the Chinese mainland fell 0.12%, but the offshore yuan gained 0.16% to trade at 7.2570 versus the US dollar.
