China's services sector maintained its strong expansion last month as offline activities like travel and dining revived despite the marginal resurgence in local COVID-19 cases, experts said on Thursday.
China s services sector maintained its strong expansion last month as offline activities like travel and dining revived despite the marginal resurgence in local COVID-19 cases, experts said on Thursday.
The Caixin China General Services Purchasing Managers Index, a private gauge of the country s services activity, came in at 55.1 in May, down from 56.3 in April but firmly above the 50-mark that separates expansion from contraction, pointing to a marked increase in services activity.
Underpinning the robust expansion have been a sustained recovery in market sales, rising staffing levels, and upbeat business expectations, media group Caixin said in a report on Thursday.
China’s steel market has reached an inflection point with a lot of uncertainty around the near-term direction, borne out by extreme volatility in the physical and futures prices. Given this scenario, both steel prices and orders were given a neutral score of three out of five in the monthly S&P Global Platts Analytics China Steel .
China’s copper smelters eye exports to offset expanding import losses
Negative domestic premiums and expanding import losses led Chinese copper cathode producers to sell more cathodes to ex-China markets, sources said June 3.
S&P Global Platts assessed Chinese copper import premiums at a record low $29/mt plus London Metal Exchange cash, CIF China, on June 2, for LME-registered normal brands of ER cathode. This was $49/mt, or 61.3%, lower than $75/mt assessed on Feb. 23, 2021 the highest level this year.
Domestic discount traded at Yuan 100-200/mt ($16-$31/mt) over Shanghai Futures Exchange copper futures contract during the week of May 28 and improved to Yuan 10/mt June 3.