Economic and event calendar in Asia 31 August 2026 – China official PMIs
It’s a packed data agenda ahead with the priority item Chinese PMI data.
Setting the stage for the session ahead is this renewed hostility:
China’s National Bureau of Statistics releases its official August Purchasing Managers’ Indices on Monday at 9:30am Beijing time (01:30 GMT/2130 US Eastern time Sunday), with the manufacturing print due to show whether a contraction that deepened sharply in July has begun to ease.
A Reuters poll of 17 economists puts the consensus for the official manufacturing PMI at 49.6, up from July’s 49.2 but still below the 50-point line separating expansion from contraction. July’s reading had missed expectations of 49.9 and marked a 1.1 point drop from June’s 50.3, extending weakness across firms of all sizes rather than reflecting stress in any single segment of the sector.
The backdrop remains soft domestic demand and an ongoing property market slump, which have combined to hold second quarter GDP growth to 4.3%, below the lower end of Beijing’s 4.5 to 5% annual target. Offsetting some of that drag has been resilience in manufacturing and exports, with a global boom in AI infrastructure investment lifting demand for China’s high-tech goods even as the broader trade backdrop, including the fallout from the Middle East war, remains uncertain.
A print at or above the 49.6 consensus would support the view that factory activity is stabilising; a miss would revive concerns that China’s slowdown is broadening beyond property into manufacturing more generally.
Alongside the manufacturing figure, NBS will also publish the non-manufacturing PMI, which covers services and construction, and had fallen to 49.0 in July from 50.2 in June, and a composite output index blending both.
This article was written by Eamonn Sheridan at investinglive.com.