The HSBC purchasing managers' index (PMI) for the Chinese
manufacturing sector indicated a final reading of 49.6 for December this year, declining by 0.4 percentage points compared to the final reading for November of 50.0, and falling to the lowest level of the past eight months, as announced by HSBC Holdings PLC on December 31. According to Hongbin Qu, HSBC's chief economist for
China, in December this year the new order index declined to 49.7, the lowest level since May this year. Mr. Qu said that, though the decrease in the final PMI was partially due to temporary factors, such as the fact that some factories have not fully resumed their production activities after the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting, the domestic
manufacturing industry has been in an overall difficult situation. Since economic data released recently have fallen short of expectations, it is expected that
China's central government may loosen its monetary policy further, the HSBC official stated.