China's equipment, high-tech manufacturing sectors in rapid growth in June: experts

China's equipment and high-tech manufacturing sectors, as new drivers of the country's manufacturing industry, posted accelerated growth in June, while the industry itself underwent continued improvement of the structure amid a stable economic performance, according to experts.

In June, the purchasing managers' index (PMI) for the equipment manufacturing sector reached 51 percent, marking a 0.3 percentage points increase from the previous month. Among the sub-indexes, the production index and new order index rose to 53 percent and 52 percent respectively, indicating a significant acceleration in both supply and demand within the sector.

The PMI for the high-tech manufacturing sector stood at 52.3 percent in the same month, with an increase of 1.6 percentage points compared to the previous month, signifying a significant improvement in the sector's growth rate.

"The PMI for the high-tech manufacturing sector has kept expanding for eight consecutive months, while the PMI for the equipment manufacturing sector has kept going up for four consecutive months. These trends reflect the ongoing advancement of China's manufacturing industry in terms of transformation and upgrading, accompanied by the development of new high-quality productive forces," said Huo Lihui, head of the Service Survey Center's business climate survey division with the National Bureau of Statistics.

Furthermore, the average PMI for the manufacturing industry from January to June stood at 49.8 percent, indicating a 0.3 percentage points increase compared to the average of the second half of 2023.

Since the beginning of this year, despite certain fluctuations in monthly indexes, manufacturing enterprises have sustained a positive outlook for the future, driven by the continuous implementation of various policies.

In June, the Production and Operation Expectation Index reached 54.4 percent, up 0.1 percentage point compared to the previous month. Throughout this year, the index has consistently maintained a level of 54 percent or higher.

"Judged by the overall performance in the first half of the year, it can be said that production supply has been in consistent growth. Secondly, there has been a progress in improvement of the industrial structure. And thirdly, large enterprises have demonstrated stable growth, playing a constructive role in the overall trend of a stable and improving economy," said Cai Jin, vice president of China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing.

China's equipment, high-tech manufacturing sectors in rapid growth in June: experts

Cargo throughput and ship arrivals at China's coastal and inland river ports registered robust growth in the first half of this year, data from the Ministry of Transport shows on Tuesday.

A total of 15,211,700 vessels passed through ports from January to June, up 14.35 percent compared with the same period last year.

The first six months of the year also witnessed cargo throughput growing 4.85 percent to 9.184 billion tonnes.

The robust growth, a sign of the country's thriving maritime trade, is the result of dual circulations, a new economic development paradigm featuring the reinforcement of the domestic and overseas markets.

The past decade has witnessed the application of China's self-developed BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) in the country's waterways. The number of coastal navigation marks in the country has grown 68.8 percent to 20,600 over the past ten years, all of which have been integrated into the BDS.

The country has so far built a coastal BeiDou ground-based augmentation system, consisting of 23 BeiDou differential stations and 75 continuously operating reference stations, representing the world's largest maritime safety system.

Cargo throughput at coastal ports, inland river ports reaches 9.184 bln tons