Survey: China factory decline slows slightly
HONG KONG (AP) — A report says China's manufacturing contracted in April for the fourth straight month. The pace of decline was a hair slower than the previous month, suggesting the slowdown in the world's No. 2 economy is bottoming out.
HSBC's purchasing managers' index released Monday ticked up to 48.1 from 48.0 in March.
The index uses a 100-point scale on which numbers above 50 indicate expansion.
The reading is slightly lower than 48.3 in a preliminary version of the report last month.
The report said new orders overall fell faster than new export orders, indicating that weak domestic demand was mainly to blame for weakness in manufacturing.
A separate index on China factories released last week by a state-sanctioned group remained barely above the no-change level.
