China’s manufacturing sector slowed last month as strict measures to curb winter pollution forced factories to cut production, the latest sign of policymakers’ increasing willingness to sacrifice economic growth in favour of other priorities.
Environmental inspections have prompted thousands of factory and mine closures across northern China. Hebei province, the centre of the country’s steel industry, said in September it would cut production by as much as half in large cities.
“The resulting blue skies over Beijing have upended the conventional wisdom that local government officials would always put economic growth over the environment,” wrote Yanmei Xie, analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics, a Beijing-based research company.
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