A staff member works in a facotry of an automobile company in Xi'an, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Feb. 27, 2020. (Xinhua/Shao Rui)
"That is a promising sign…They were able to do it. We should be able to accomplish something similar."
BEIJING, April 2 (Xinhua) -- China's speedy recovery is an encouraging sign for the global economy currently mired in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, economists and analysts say.
The purchasing managers' index (PMI) for China's manufacturing sector firmed up to 52 in March from 35.7 in February, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Tuesday. A reading above 50 indicates expansion, while a reading below reflects contraction.
David Ingles with Bloomberg tweets about China's PMI rebound on March 31.
The data came as a delightful surprise for market observers. A recovery in Chinese factory activity has raised hopes that the economic impact of the COVID-19 outbreak will be short after official figures showed that the sector had recovered unexpectedly in March, The Times reported. Oxford Economics also reported China's recovery already well under way.
"The interesting thing is that as they've started to bring the economy back up to life, the weekday traffic is getting back to normal. The weekend traffic, which is consumer traffic, discretionary traffic, is still at quite low levels," said Nick Colas, co-founder of DataTrek Research told U.S. media CNBC.
That should still bode well for U.S. businesses, however, given China's rapid rate of recovery, Colas said.
Aerial photo taken on March 26, 2020 shows staff on duty checking health QR code of drivers and passengers at an expressway toll-gate in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province. Traffic flow at highway exits increased due to a growing number of people returned as Wuhan speeds up resumption of work and production. (Xinhua/Xiao Yijiu)
The PMI rebound came as the country's arduous efforts in coordinating epidemic control and economic and social development have generally filtered through, NBS senior statistician Zhao Qinghe said.
With positive changes taking place in domestic epidemic control and prevention, 96.6 percent of China's large and medium-sized enterprises have resumed production, up 17.7 percentage points from one month ago, NBS survey showed.
Workers are seen at a factory of Great Wall Motors in Yongchuan District of Chongqing, southwest China, March 18, 2020. By taking measures to cut down the rents and guarantee fees for companies during the epidemic time, Chongqing's Yongchuan District has seen most of its key companies resume production. (Xinhua/Huang Wei)
"Particularly in important cities like Shenzhen and Beijing and Shanghai, they were able to come back up to quasi-normal levels of weekday activity within a month," he said. "So, that is a promising sign if we're thinking about what the [end] of this is for the U.S. They were able to do it. We should be able to accomplish something similar,"Colas said.
The United States has lagged behind Europe and China in terms of stemming job losses amid the outbreak, economists said. Last week, U.S. jobless claims soared to an unprecedented record high of 3.28 million, CNBC reported.■