China’s PMI Surges

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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The HSBC China PMI flashed a surge to 51.9 in January based on its preliminary measure, with any number above signaling expansion. The final count for December was 51.5. The figure almost certainly means that overseas demand for China exports have picked up, although with recessions in much of Europe and Japan, and the U.S. in an historically slow growth phase, it is hard to figure where. It may be that internal consumption of goods by China’s massive middle class it part of the demand. It may also be that inventories of manufacturer goods in China has grown, and not actually been sent overseas.

According to Bloomberg:

The data suggest that China’s expansion at the start of 2013 will equal or exceed its 7.9 percent clip in the fourth quarter. Sliding Japanese exports and below-forecast growth in South Korea reported today underscore Asian economies’ dependence on China as austerity measures in Europe limit demand.

“Despite the still-tepid external demand, the domestic- driven restocking process is likely to add steam to China’s ongoing recovery in the coming months,” Qu Hongbin, HSBC’s chief China economist in Hong Kong, said in a statement.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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