Mixed Signs of Recovery for Asian Economies

BEIJING - The Chinese economy picked up in November, but a broader global recovery remains fragile and patchy, a clutch of factory surveys suggested Monday, with activity elsewhere in Asia remaining largely subdued and demand from Europe and the United States depressed.

Several major emerging economies that have contributed the most to global economic growth in recent years have been sputtering of late, with India expected to post its weakest full-year expansion of gross domestic product in a decade and Brazil logging an unexpectedly weak third quarter.

That has left investors once again hoping China will take up the slack, and evidence has been accumulating since late September that the Chinese economy is regaining some of its vigor after seven consecutive quarters of slowing growth.

The final reading of the HSBC China manufacturing purchasing managers' index showed Monday that it had risen to 50.5 in November from 49.5 in October, the first time since October 2011 that it had topped the line at 50 that separates growth from contraction.

“This confirms that the Chinese economy continues to recover gradually,” wrote Qu Hongbin, HSBC's chief China economist.

It followed a similar survey from the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics, released Saturday, that showed the pace of growth in the manufacturing sector increasing.

The bureau's official purchasing managers' index rose to a seven-month high of 50.6 for November, from 50.2 in October.

But contained within the official data were potentially worrying signs that the Chinese economy had failed to shed its heavy reliance on state-led investment.

Growth accelerated for large companies for the third month in a row, but medium-size and small companies saw a retrenchment, with the decline more pronounced for small companies, the bureau said in a note with the data.

“The improving numbers are mostly because of government investment,” said Dong Xianan, an economist with Peking First Advisory, referring to the official survey results. “From the second quarter the government has unleashed a lot of projects, and that has started to be felt in the economy, but it's not a very healthy recovery yet.”

Two other export-driven Asian economies remain weak. The purchasing managers' indexes for November for South Korea and Taiwan remained below 50 for the sixth month in a row.

India, whose economic woes are as much to do with internal politics and its struggle to control a yawning fiscal deficit as with the global downturn, represented a bright spot among Monday's factory read-outs.

In India, factory activity has been expanding for over three-and-a-half years, although it remains well below the expansion rate seen in the years before the 2008 global financial crisis. The HSBC manufacturing purchasing managers' index for India beat expectations, rising to 53.7 in November from 52.9 in October.

A version of this article appeared in print on December 4, 2012, in The International Herald Tribune.