Data on China - you choose which data set to believe is more accurate

China Manufacturing PMI™ Decreases at Second-Fastest Rate in Three Years

The slowdown in China continues at an accelerating rate according to the HSBC China Manufacturing PMI™.

March data showed manufacturing production falling for the fourth time in the past five months. Factory output was reduced largely in response to lacklustre demand from domestic and external markets. New orders fell at the fastest rate in 2012 so far, while new export business decreased for a second month in succession. Manufacturers reduced their employee numbers as a result, while purchasing activity was also down from one month earlier. There was little change on the price front, with factory gate charges falling modestly, and the rate of input cost inflation remaining somewhat subdued.

Companies reported a renewed decline in manufacturing output during March, with the rate of contraction the steepest since November and the second-sharpest in three years. Behind the overall decrease in factory output was a further decline in total new business. Underlying demand weakness was broad-based across domestic and external markets, with new export business also falling moderately from one month earlier. Rates of decline in both cases were among the sharpest seen since the 08/09 financial crisis.

Key points

• Reduced factory output reflects falling new business from home and abroad
• Manufacturing employment down at sharpest rate in three years
• Input price inflation ticks higher, but remains modest overall

but consider the official version of china PMI....

Schrödinger Goes To Shanghai - Finds Economy Both Alive And Dead

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/01/2012 13:28 -0400

• China
 
• CPI
 
• Markit

Back in February we were quite amused by conflicting internal and external reports of manufacturing growth in China, which according to the HSBC Markit Manufacturing PMI index had contracted for a 4th consecutive month even as the official Chinese PMI data showed 3 consecutive expansions. It just happened again, only this time thespread between the two indices has jumped to the second highest ever, with the official PMI index surging to 53.1, an expansionarynumber, an eleven month high while according to HSBC it slid to 48.3, indicative of contraction, and paradoxically indicating that in "the first quarter as a whole, the index averaged its lowest reading since Q1 2009." In other words, the Schrödinger paradox - where the economy was doing better and worse at the same time - which was experienced for the past three months in the US (and is now finished with the economy rolling over), has shifted to Shanghai, where it is now the PBOC's turn to baffle all with bullshit. Why? One simple reason: despite what everyone believes, China still has residual and quite strong pockets of inflation. So while the world may be expecting an RRR, or even interest rate, cut any second now (just as China surprised everyone literally house before the November the global FX swap line expansion by the Fed in November 2011), the PBOC is just not sure it can afford the spike in inflation, or even perception thereof.

This also explains why while HSBC, being a member of the banking cartel would love nothing more than more easing from PBOC, China is far more more cautious about further easing, especially if the Fed does go ahead with more QE anyway, the bulk of which China would import as excess inflation anyway. For vivid proof of this observe chart two: the last time we had a record spread between HSBC and China PMI, Chinese CPI soared from -2% to over 6%. China is now at 3%, just as the index spread is the second highest ever. If we are to assume that Chinese easing will follow the March 2009 episode, and thus assume a trough Chinese inflation of 3.2%, one can see that the 12% implied inflation at the end of the current easing episode is why the PBOC will be far, far more reluctant to engage in the same easing policies as the Markit group of banks would wish for it to.