02/29/2020 - 13:49
- Clarín.com
- World
The economic effects of the crisis of the new coronavirus begin to glimpse in China, with manufacturing dropping to historic lows on a day in which the contagions in Hubei province slightly increased, the focus of the epidemic, while the rest of the country registered the fewer new cases since January.
China's manufacturing industry recorded its worst data in February since the official historical series began in 2005, when its benchmark indicator collapsed, the purchasing manager index (PMI), 14.3 points to 35.7, according to data Officials published this Saturday.
The data, offered by the National Statistics Office (ONE), represents a cold water bucket for analysts, who expected a drop in that indicator but between 4 and 5 points compared to the January data.
In February, the coronavirus crisis caused a decline in manufacturing industry even greater than that recorded in its worst reading so far, that of November 2008 (38.8 points), when the world was facing the financial crisis.
In this index, a record above the threshold of 50 points implies growth and one below, contraction. To get an idea of what this fall means, the average recorded in the twelve months of 2019 - year in which the Chinese economy was affected by the trade war with the United States - was 49.7 points.
In the breakdown by company size, large companies fell 14.1 points to 36.3, but medium and small companies suffered even more after reaching 35.5 and 34.1 units, respectively.
Employees with protective suits in an appliance factory in Foshan, China, days ago. / EFE
The five sub-indices that make up the manufacturing PMI registered falls of between 13.2 and 23.5 integers: the production index stood at 27.8 points; that of new orders, at 29.3; that of employment, at 31.8; the delivery time used by suppliers, in 32.1, and the provision of raw materials, in 33.9.
The hit was even worse in businesses not related to manufacturing , whose PMI had never registered a contraction since its historical series began, in 2007 and went from being 54.1 points in January to 29.6 February after drop 24.5 points.
In this case, the experts of the specialized portal Trading Economics predicted a fall of just over 7 points.
Employees in protective suits bring food to quarantined people this Saturday in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the focus of coronavirus infection. / AFP
The services sector, which represents more than half of the country's GDP, lost 23 points in February, the month in which it ended at 30.1.
The ONE indicates that, in the breakdown of these businesses, only those related to financial and monetary services and capital market services remained in the expansion zone.
Meanwhile, the institution also highlights that other businesses such as telecommunications, radio and television services, satellite transmission and internet, software and information technology "were in the contraction zone but much higher than average. of the services sector ".
A fact that highlights the economic pessimism in China is the index of expectation of economic activity, which measures the confidence of non-manufacturing companies in future market development: it fell 19.6 points to 40.
The comprehensive PMI production index, the combined radiography of the manufacturing and non-manufacturing industries, also registered a drop never seen before, although in its case it only began to be published in 2017: it went from 53 to 28.9 points after a 24.1 drop.
Despite this debacle, the ONE statistician Zhao Qinghe said that the situation is improving in recent days: "As of February 25, among the companies surveyed for the national PMI the rate of return to work in medium-sized companies was of 78.9%, while in medium-sized manufacturing companies it reached 85.6%. "
Although the Government has insisted these last days on these data, some analysts and specialized media have pointed out that this rate does not contemplate the production rate but instead focuses on the reopening of work centers.
Source: EFE and AFP