China's official manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI) had an 11-year high coming in at 52.6 in February, as the targeted policy supporting further took effect on top of the subsided impact from the COVID-19 epidemic, newly released data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Wednesday.
The figure reflected an increase of 2.5 points compared with January, continuing going above 50 indicates expansion while reflecting further boosted factory activities, beating a forecast of 50.5 issued by Reuters.
The rapid expansion came under an accelerated resumption of manufacturing production after the Chinese New Year holidays and the lingering impact of the epidemic gradually shifted, according to Zhao Qinghe, a NBS senior statistician.
In January, China's PMI stood at 50.1, up from 47 in December.
Besides, the indexes tracking production reached 56.7 in February, recording a monthly increase of 6.9 points, while the figure targeting new orders grew 3.2 points to 54.1, data showed.
Chinese enterprises are more confident in expanding production and accelerating manufacturing resumption after the nation optimized the COVID-19 epidemic response, Dong Dengxin, director of the Finance and Securities Institute of the Wuhan University of Science and Technology, told the Global Times on Wednesday.
Dong added that buoyant confidence also comes as the nation's economic achievements made in 2022 despite coping with challenges resulted by complex external factors.
The PMI for large-, medium- and small-enterprises recorded an increase of 1.4, 3.4 and 4.0 points to 53.7, 52.0 and 51.2, data showed. Specifically, the PMI for small businesses bounced back to the expansion territory for the first time since May, 2021.
In addition, China's private Caixin PMI revealed a 51.6 result for February, marking the first time for the figure to return to the expansion territory since August 2022 and the highest since July.
Analysts from Caixin attributed the performance to an accelerated recovery across the domestic economy, showing by expanded industry demand, recovering employment and further improved market confidence.
Moreover, the firm government support through various policies aiming to stabilize the economy also plays as an indispensable role in elevating the market confidence.
In comparison with the Western economies which constantly adopt aggressive rate hikes, China has been reducing interest rate, offering a strong policy support to domestic enterprises on top of already implemented policies, said Dong.
The NBS data also showed that the composite PMI increased 3.5 points to 56.4, indicating a fast expansion pace for domestic enterprises' operation, while noting difficulties still lingering as the economic recovery still needs to consolidate the foundation.