Pollyanna De Lima, Economist at Markit and author of the report, said, The Indian manufacturing economy edged further in the right direction during February, eking out modest gains in new orders and output.
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The Caixin General China Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), another indicator of manufacturing activity, fell to 48 in February from 48.4 in January.
Job destruction from a slowing Chinese economy and reform of bloated state enterprises will put pressure on policymakers to come up with measures to create employment as Beijing finalizes its plan for China’s development over the next five years.
China’s official non-manufacturing PMI, also released on Tuesday, also fell to 52.7 from 53.5 in January. Economic activity slows dramatically around the holiday, which falls on a different date in late winter every year. For instance, in January, South Korea’s exports have suffered their worst downturn since the global financial crisis in 2009.
While the February PMI for the service sector did come in above the 50 threshold it still declined compared to the previous month.
Yesterday China’s central bank, the PBOC, moved to again buttress the economic growth, cutting the amount of money banks need to hold as reserves by 0.5% to 17.0%.
Industrial profits fell 2.3 percent in 2015 after rising 3.3 percent in 2014.
It was the seventh consecutive month that the official index showed contraction, which Bloomberg News said was the longest such series on record.
China said on Monday it expects to lay off 1.8 million workers in the coal and steel industries, or about 15 percent of the workforce, as part of efforts to reduce industrial overcapacity, but no timeframe was given.
“PMI data for February indicates that Indonesian manufacturers continue to struggle”. Manufacturing weighed on Britain’s overall economic growth at the end of past year, leaving the country’s much bigger services sector as the sole driver of the recovery.
Analysts have been watching closely for signs that the sharp slowdown in China’s industrial sector is filtering into employment and wage growth.
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