BEIJING/SEOUL, Nov 1 (Reuters) – Big Asian economies are
slowly picking up after a year battling global headwinds,
business surveys and data showed on Thursday, with renewed vim
from China’s factories and a rebound in South Korean exports.

There were also signs of some improvement in the U.S.
economy which added 158,000 job in October, data from a payrolls
processor showed, far more than the 135,000 predicted in a
Reuters poll.

BEIJING/SEOUL, Nov 1 (Reuters) – Big Asian economies are
slowly picking up after a year spent battling against global
headwinds, according to business surveys and data released on
Thursday that showed renewed vim from China’s factory sector and
a rebound in South Korean exports.

A U.S. factory survey later – closely watched in Asia as a
pointer towards export and production trends – is likely to show
more evidence of a sluggish recovery with a second straight
month of expansion in manufacturing.

BEIJING/SEOUL (Reuters) – Big Asian economies are slowly picking up after a year spent battling against global headwinds, according to business surveys and data released on Thursday that showed renewed vim from China’s factory sector and a rebound in South Korean exports.

A U.S. factory survey later – closely watched in Asia as a pointer towards export and production trends – is likely to show more evidence of a sluggish recovery with a second straight month of expansion in manufacturing.

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s economy is finally regaining traction, official and private sector factory surveys showed on Thursday, although the recovery remains sluggish with the latter recording its 12th straight month of slowing growth.

Evidence is mounting that the economy revived in October after domestic credit curbs and poor demand from overseas markets pushed economic growth in the third quarter to its weakest rate since the depths of the global financial crisis.

BEIJING, Nov 1 (Reuters) – China’s official factory
purchasing managers’ index rose to 50.2 in October from 49.8 in
September, recovering from a two-month dip into contracting
territory, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Thursday.

Economists polled by Reuters this week had expected the
October official PMI to rise to 50.3, confirming a trend toward
recovering growth in the world’s second-largest economy.

BEIJING (Reuters) – Benign inflation in September showed China has scope to ease policy even as evidence mounts that earlier pro-growth measures are gaining traction, reducing the pressure on policymakers to act as a once-a-decade leadership transition approaches.

Signs that lending is finally perking up, the approaching end to the destocking cycle and stable employment could allow policymakers to argue that steps taken earlier this year to support the economy in the face of strong global headwinds have worked.

BEIJING (Reuters) – Benign inflation data for September offered further evidence on Monday that China’s pro-growth policies are gaining traction while leaving scope for further tweaks, giving officials breathing room as they approach a once-a-decade leadership transition.

Subdued consumer prices, signs that lending is finally perking up and the approaching end to the destocking cycle, along with stable employment, could allow policymakers to argue that steps taken earlier this year have worked, while leaving plenty of space to spur faster growth in the winter after a new generation of leaders takes over the ruling Communist Party.

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s annual consumer price inflation likely softened to 1.9 percent in September, flirting with July’s two-and-a-half year low, with producer prices set to record their steepest drop since October 2009, a Reuters poll of 26 economists found.

Easing consumer prices and outright falls in factory gate prices are fresh signs that the world’s second-biggest economy is struggling to escape the tug of a global slowdown that has set China on course for its weakest full year of growth since 1999.

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s services sector rebounded in September after its growth hit a one-year low in August, according to a private sector survey on Monday that follows last week’s much more gloomy official assessment.

The HSBC services sector Purchasing Managers’ Index rose to 54.3 in September from 52.0 in August, rebounding to its highest level since May thanks to an uptick in the new business sub-index to 54.0 – also the highest level in four months.

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s normally robust services sector weakened sharply in September to its lowest point since November 2010, as slow growth in manufacturing finally began to feed through to the rest of the economy, an official survey showed on Wednesday.

The official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for the sector fell to 53.7 in September from 56.3 in August, weighed by weakened construction services and transport as well as lackluster new orders overall, according to the latest survey from the National Bureau of Statistics.