China's manufacturing sector continues to contract despite slight improvement

China’s factory activity declined for the eighth month in a row in November, according to official data released Sunday, signaling ongoing weakness in the world’s second-largest economy despite a recent easing of trade tensions with the United States.

The National Bureau of Statistics reported a manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) of 49.2 for November, up modestly from October’s 49.0 but still below the 50 threshold that separates growth from contraction. The figure also fell short of economists’ median expectation of 49.4 from a Bloomberg survey.

The marginal improvement followed an October meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump in South Korea, where both sides agreed to pause their trade dispute. Trump announced plans to reduce a 20 percent tariff on Chinese goods, while Xi pledged to temporarily lift certain export controls on the rare-earth industry. China also agreed to restart soybean imports from the United States after a halt earlier in the harvest season.

In addition to the manufacturing slowdown, China’s non-manufacturing PMI—which tracks the services and construction industries—slipped to 49.5 in November. This marks its first contraction in nearly three years, driven largely by weakening performance in real estate and residential services.

Despite the persistent softness across key sectors, China is still expected to meet its full-year growth goal of around 5 percent.