National Bureau of Statistics interprets February’s PMI data:Rising work resumption rate will boost data

On February 29， the Service Industry Survey Center of the National Bureau of Statistics and the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing released the China Purchasing Manager Index（PMI）. The latest data show that in February 2020， Chinas PMI was greatly affected by the COVID-19 epidemic. The manufacturing PMI was 35.7%， a decrease of 14.3 percentage points from the previous month； the non-manufacturing business activity index was 29.6%， a decrease of 24.5 percentage points from the previous month. At the same time， the survey results show that with the Party Central Committee and the State Council coordinating the promo- tion of epidemic prevention and control and economic and social development， the current rate of work resumption in enterprises is rising rapidly， and production and operation activities are recovering orderly. As of February 25， among the companies surveyed by the national procurement managers， the work resumption rate of large and medium-sized enterprises was 78.9%， of which large and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises reached 85.6%.

Purchasing manager surveys show that the work resumption rate of large and medium-sized enterprises will rise to 90.8% at the end of March， of which 94.7% will be in the manufacturing industry， up 11.9 and 9.1 percentage points respectively from the current level. Recently， a series of policies and measures such as tax and fee reduction， financial services， rent reduction and employment subsidy for the epidemic， especially support for small and mediumsized enterprises to pass the crisis， have been gradually implemented， which will effectively alleviate the difficulties brought by the epidemic to production and operation to further boost corporate confidence and accelerate the pace of resumption of production， it is expected that Chinas purchasing manager index will improve in March.