Chinese manufacturing accelerates for the fourth consecutive month  

The Chinese manufacturing sector improved in April for the third consecutive month, showing that the world’s second-biggest economy is still showing positive and stability signs amid Europe’s debt crisis and a cooling domestic property market.

China’s statistics bureau and logistics federation issued the PMI manufacturing, where the nation's purchasing-managers index advanced to 53.3 in April compared with 53.1 in March, lower than economists’ forecast of 53.6, but the reading is still above 50 that indicate there is an expansion in the industrial sector.

Today’s report showed that the Chinese economy is on the track after the slowest pace in about three years, but this period the Chinese economic performance is still facing pressures as companies face increasing operational difficulties. Higher electricity and fuel prices are pushing up costs and average wages across the nation this year may increase by 20 percent.

Moreover, China’s gross domestic product expanded 8.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011, slowing from a 9.1 percent gain in the previous three months, as the government waged a campaign to tame gains in consumer and housing prices.

Signs of economic improvement include an incline in industrial output and surge in new lending in March, where the companies’ profits at industrial companies rose in March from a year earlier, rebounding from the first quarter decline since 2009.

Furthermore, weaker external demand supported to reduce companies’ production during this period, while the Chinese economy has expanded 8.1 percent in the first three months from a year earlier.