Manufacturing limps back from recession, globally
Two separate versions of China's purchasing managers' index ( PMI ) showed on Friday that factory output in the world's second-biggest economy rose in January, but the pace of the revival in activity was uneven.
The patchy nature of the recovery on Chinese factory floors was repeated in other PMI releases across Asia. Surveys showed manufacturing growth slowed or stalled in India and South Korea, Asia's third- and fourth-largest economies respectively.
Factories in Indonesia, the star emerging economy of the past year, said business shrank in January from December for the first time in eight months, while manufacturers in Taiwan reported the fastest growth in 10 months.
“January's PMI does raise some red flags about the state of the economy," Alistair Thornton, an economist at IHS Global Insight in Beijing, said in reference to the Chinese economy. “Things look a little shaky.”
Euro zone factories had their best month in nearly a year during January as burgeoning German output offered support amid signs the worst may be over for the troubled currency bloc, a business survey showed on Friday.
While Markit's PMI pointed to a continued decline in activity, it rose to an 11-month high, suggesting the downturn in manufacturing output - which fell for most of last year - has passed
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