Well, the headline numbers may have disappointed slightly to the downside in China’s official PMI data (released earlier), but the construction sub-index soared to a three-year high.
Here’s the highly amusing, Google-translated quote from NBS’ official website:
Construction industry boom to enhance the high.
With the continued investment in key areas, infrastructure investment continued to run high, this year the construction industry to maintain rapid growth in production, this month’s business activity index was 62.5% , up 1.1 percentage points from the previous month , the highest point in recent years.
Here’s FT with the English-as-a-first-language version:
The official sub-index for activity growth in China’s construction sector climbed to 62.5 in July, the highest level for that gauge since December of 2013.
Well obviously, the read-through from that is bullish for commodities and especially for iron ore, which skyrocketed more than 7% on the Dalian and at least 6% on SGX AsiaClear, both four-month highs:
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Building more ghost towns is the only way GDP hits 6? It sounds yet again, in China, like this is the last day I will snort coke.