A factory along China’s Yangtze River in a September 2008 archive photograph. The image illustrates industrial activity and is not identified as one of the businesses in the October 2026 survey.
Photo: High Contrast / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0 DE. Resized.
China’s factory activity returned to contraction in October, with the official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index falling to 49.3 from 50.1 in September, the National Bureau of Statistics said Saturday.
The decline of 0.8 points took the index back below the 50 mark that separates expansion from contraction. The survey measures changes in business conditions compared with the previous month; it does not mean that factory output fell by 0.8%.
The bureau’s October 31 assessment showed weakness extending beyond manufacturing. The non-manufacturing business activity index fell 0.5 points to 49.7, while the composite output index dropped 1 point to 49.7.
Production and orders both weaken
The manufacturing production index fell 1.9 points to 49.8, and the new-orders index declined 1.1 points to 49.4. Both moved below the expansion threshold.
NBS statistician Huo Lihui attributed the weaker manufacturing reading partly to demand brought forward ahead of the National Day holiday and a complex, changing international environment.
The slowdown was uneven. Large manufacturers remained above the threshold at 50.2, while medium-sized and small manufacturers registered 48.4 and 47.5, respectively. High-tech manufacturing remained in expansion at 51.3, as did equipment manufacturing at 50.6. Consumer-goods manufacturing fell to 48.8.
Services hold at 50 as construction contracts
The services activity index edged down 0.2 points to 50.0, the dividing line between expansion and contraction. Construction activity fell 2.3 points to 48.0.
The bureau said holiday-related travel supported rail transportation, accommodation, and cultural, sports and entertainment services. A sharp decline in financial-sector activity was the main reason overall services activity weakened slightly, it said.
Price pressures eased in manufacturing but did not disappear. The raw-material purchase-price index fell 4 points to 56.8, while the factory-gate price index declined 2.3 points to 51.7. Both remained above 50, indicating prices were still rising on the survey’s measure, but less broadly than in the previous month.
The figures point to a reversal of September’s brief return to factory expansion, alongside continued growth in some advanced manufacturing industries. They are monthly business-survey indicators, not a direct measure of China’s quarterly economic growth.
JBizNews Desk | Beijing
© JBizNews.com. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is strictly prohibited.
