Manufacturing activity in China suffered its first official contraction since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic as widespread power shortages compounded a loss of momentum across the country’s economy.
China’s manufacturing purchasing managers’ index, an official gauge of factory activity, was 49.6 in September, dropping below the 50-point threshold that separates monthly contraction from expansion for the first time since February last year.
The PMI figures are one of the clearest signals yet of weaknesses across China’s economy as it grapples with severe power shortages, a slowdown across its vast property sector and sporadic outbreaks of the highly infectious Delta variant of Covid-19.
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