BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s services sector activity grew in February at its strongest pace in six months as the lifting of strict COVID-19 measures revived demand and led to growth in employment, show the results published Friday of a private survey.
The services PMI index calculated by Caixin/S&P Global stood at 55.0 last month, after 52.9 in January, thus marking a new increase following the lifting in December by the Chinese government of measures of containment.
Contraction and expansion of activity are separated by the 50 point threshold.
This is data in line with the official services PMI released on Wednesday, which indicates that a solid rebound in the sector is underway.
According to the survey carried out by Caixin, companies in the service sector have recorded an unprecedented increase in new business since April 2021.
Taking advantage of this rebound in activity, companies created jobs for the first time in four months, at a rate not seen since November 2020, in the wake in particular of the acceleration in demand for travel.
The composite PMI index calculated by Caixin/S&P rose to 54.2 in February after 51.1 the previous month, its fastest pace since last June.
(Report Ellen Zhang and Ryan Woo; Jean Terzian)
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