单项选择题
China’s manufacturing and business-activity indices both finished in positive territory in June, confirming that the world’s third-largest economy is continuing to expand amid a mixed picture elsewhere in Asia.
India’s manufacturers have also stepped up production, leading to a slight pick-up in employment in the sector last month and the first rise in factory-gate prices for eight months.
Japan and Australia, the region’s largest and fourth-biggest economies respectively, are showing tentative signs that the worst of the downturn may soon be behind them, according to surveys of their companies-but no hint of a robust bounce—back.
The various surveys measuring business activity in China, India, Japan, Australia and Hong Kong—all released yesterday—are being studied for signs that Asia could help lead the developed world out of its deep recession.
Sentiment among big Japanese manufactures has improved since the first three months of the year, the Bank of Japan’s quarterly Tankan survey showed yesterday. The index, which suffered a record fall to a new low of minus 58 in March, recovered to a less dramatic minus 48 in June, the BoJ said-the survey’s first rise in more than two years. But continued, and widespread, gloom and plans to slash investment underscore the fragility of any recovery.
Australian manufacturing activity weakened in June, although the pace of decline eased slightly. It was the 13th consecutive month that the Australian index was below the 50—point level—the mark separating growth from shrinkage.
The China indices—one produced by CLSA, an investment bank, and the second by government agencies—have recorded an increase in output for the past four months. Cheered investors pushed the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index above 3,000 points for the first time this year. The expansion recorded by the manufacturing indices is further evidence that Beijing’s RMB 4,0000bn($59obn, 414bn, ￡354bn)stimulus package is having an impact on the real economy. "We take this as a signal that the green shoots of economic recovery have taken root and are likely to blossom in the second half of the year," Morgan Stanley’s Chinese economy research team wrote. Andy Rothman, China analyst for CLSA, said new export orders had finally broken into expansion territory in June.
The pick-up in exports has yet to flow through firmly to Hong Kong, where the purchasing manager’s index showed business activity still contracting, although the pace was easing.
A. Asia countries cannot help lead the developed world out of its deep recession.
B. The expansion of production in India has led to the first rise in its price.
C. Japan and Australia has overpassed the worst of the economy downturn.
D. The world’s third-largest economy China is continuing to expand.