Caixin Services Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for September 2022 came in at 49.3
China’s economy is struggling under the weight of ongoing COVID outbreaks and the imposition of restrictions on activity. As well as the imploding property sector, burdened by debt servicing issues. After August’s improvement, the roller-coaster has taken the September services PMI back into contraction.
From the sub-indexes to the PMI, a couple of notable points:
- input prices have risen again, they have increased every month since June 2020 – higher prices for raw materials and labour (China’s inflation is officially reported as being well within target ranges)
- the employment index stayed in contraction, at 48.5, for September, its ninth straight month in contraction
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For financial markets the services PMI will add to concerns over China’s growth. Markets do tend to have a great focus on the many PMI though.
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China has been out on holiday (Golden Week) all last week. Prior to the holiday we had the other September PMIs released:
- China official Manufacturing PMI 50.1 (expected 49.6)
- China official services PMI 50.6 (expected 52.0, prior 52.6)
- China Caixin / Markit Manufacturing PMI for September 48.1 (expected 49.5, prior 49.5)
(The official and private PMIs use different surveys. The official figures are more heavily weighted towards larger and state-owned enterprises.)
