HONG KONG—China’s factory activity contracted in October after a short-lived improvement, a fresh sign of the toll from the country’s stringent Covid policies and of fading global demand for Chinese-made goods.
The official purchasing managers index for manufacturing fell to 49.2 from 50.1 in September, the National Bureau of Statistics said Monday. The result fell short of the 49.7 median forecast of economists polled by The Wall Street Journal, underscoring the vulnerability of China’s economy to its pandemic-control policies. A reading below 50 indicates contraction in activities.
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