China’s Official Manufacturing PMI Rises to 49.8 in August, Still Below the Contraction Line
China’s official manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index rose to 49.8 in August from 49.2 in July, an increase of 0.6 percentage points that the National Bureau of Statistics itself described as indicating a recovery in the manufacturing climate, though the reading stays below the 50 point line separating expansion from contraction.
New Orders Jump While Price Indicators Move Even More
The bureau calculates the headline manufacturing PMI as a weighted composite of 5 diffusion indices: New Orders, weighted 30 percent, Production, weighted 25 percent, Employment, weighted 20 percent, Supplier Delivery Time, weighted 15 percent, and Raw Materials Inventory, weighted 10 percent. Three of those 5 components improved in August, on our calculation, by subtraction. The New Order Index rose 2.1 points to 50.6 from 48.5, the largest move among the 5 headline components on our calculation. The Production Index rose 0.5 point to 50.4 from 49.9, and the Supplier Delivery Time Index rose 0.6 point to 50.1 from 49.5, moving above the 50 point threshold. The other 2 components fell: the Raw Materials Inventory Index fell 0.2 point to 48.1 and the Employment Index fell 0.3 point to 48.7.
Separately, among the wider set of sub indices the bureau tracks alongside the 5 weighted components, the New Export Orders Index, which is not itself one of the 5, rose 0.5 point to 50.1 from 49.6. Price indicators moved by more than any of the 5 headline components: the Main Raw Materials Purchase Price Index rose 3.4 points to 56.6 from 53.2, and the Producer Price Index, the survey’s own output price sub index and not China’s separate, economy wide producer price inflation release, rose 2.6 points to 50.4 from 47.8. On our calculation, those were the 2 largest moves among all the sub indices the bureau published for August.
| Sub index | August | July | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| New Orders | 50.6% | 48.5% | +2.1 |
| Production | 50.4% | 49.9% | +0.5 |
| Supplier Delivery Time | 50.1% | 49.5% | +0.6 |
| Raw Materials Inventory | 48.1% | 48.3% | -0.2 |
| Employment | 48.7% | 49.0% | -0.3 |
| New Export Orders | 50.1% | 49.6% | +0.5 |
| Main Raw Materials Purchase Price | 56.6% | 53.2% | +3.4 |
| Producer Price (survey sub index) | 50.4% | 47.8% | +2.6 |
The first 5 rows are the weighted components of the headline manufacturing PMI, National Bureau of Statistics, August and July 2026. The last 3 rows are additional sub indices the bureau tracks but does not use to calculate the headline figure. Change figures are on our calculation, by subtraction.
By enterprise size, large manufacturers reported 50.6 percent, above the expansion threshold and up 1.1 points from July, while medium sized firms reported 49.4 percent, down 0.3 point, and small firms reported 47.9 percent, up 0.5 point but still the weakest of the 3 tiers. On our calculation, the gap between the largest and smallest firms was 2.7 percentage points in August.
Services Barely Move While a Private Survey Diverges on Level
The bureau’s Non Manufacturing Business Activity Index held at 49.0 in August, unchanged from July. Within it, the construction sub index eased 0.1 point to 46.9 and the services sub index was unchanged at 49.3. The bureau’s Composite PMI Output Index rose 0.2 point to 49.5 from 49.3.
The Edge’s Asia Market Wrap reported on 1 September that the privately compiled RatingDog China General Manufacturing PMI, which S&P Global compiles, rose to 51.5 in August from 50.9 in July. The 2 surveys use different panels. The bureau samples 3,200 manufacturing enterprises with probabilities proportional to each enterprise’s principal business revenue, while S&P Global’s panel covers around 650 manufacturers, stratified by detailed sector and workforce size based on contributions to gross domestic product. Both gauges moved in the same direction in August, improving from July, but their levels diverge sharply: the bureau’s official reading stayed below the 50 point contraction line while the private survey stayed above it, a gap of 1.7 percentage points, on our calculation.
Why It Matters
For China’s manufacturers, the official data describe a sector that is improving but has not yet returned to expansion, with the recovery concentrated in new orders and among larger enterprises while small firms and employment continue to lag. The gap between the bureau’s official gauge and the private survey matters because they sample different parts of the economy. A reader relying on only one of the two would see a materially different picture of whether Chinese manufacturing is expanding or still contracting in August.
Outlook
The bureau’s own release calendar schedules the September PMI for 30 September 2026 at 01:30 GMT, though that calendar’s dates are marked preliminary, and the August release itself landed a day after its own scheduled slot on the same calendar. Whether the New Order Index’s gain holds, whether the sharp August rise in the 2 price sub indices feeds through to a broader recovery, and whether small enterprises close any of the 2.7 percentage point gap with large ones, will be the next test of whether August’s improvement continues.
Sources: National Bureau of Statistics of China; S&P Global; The Edge, Asia Market Wrap.
