China’s factory activity data remained in contraction territory for a third consecutive month in June, according to the National Bureau of Statistics’ latest reading on Friday.
The official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for June came in at 49.0, down from April’s 49.2 and May’s 48.8. This is the third consecutive month that the PMI has been below the 50-mark that separates contraction and expansion. The figure for June was right in line with the expectation of those polled by Reuters.
The figures also showed China posting its weakest official non-manufacturing PMI reading this year, coming in at 53.2 in June, dropping from 54.5 in May and 56.4 in April.
Despite a slew of weak economic data in recent months, Chinese Premier Li Qiang said on Tuesday that his country was still on pace to reach its annual growth target of around 5% — a modest target after China grew by just 3% in 2022, one of its weakest performances in nearly half a century.
