A measure of China's manufacturing demand climbed to a three-year peak in November, demonstrating the recovery of the world's second-largest economy which had been ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic only months earlier.
The official manufacturing purchasing managers' index is a survey of sentiment and activity among factory owners in China and it rose to 52.1 last month from 51.4 in October, according to the country's National Bureau of Statistics.
Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had expected the index to edge up to 51.5 - still representing a comeback for the China index, which dipped to nearly 35.0 in March as the coronavirus pandemic hit its worst.
Likewise, China's nonmanufacturing PMI - a gauge of the services and construction sectors - was 56.4, above October's reading of 56.2 and above the forecast 56.0.
Things have been looking up for manufacturers around the world. In the United States, the national PMI rose to 59.3 in October, a significant jump from 55.4 the month before. No November figures have been released.
But this might be the last good news for a while, as third and fourth waves of the virus roll across the world's biggest economies.
"Though the data is not bad for November we believe that the spread of COVID-19 in the rest of the world will continue to limit export orders and delivery of export orders in December if there are lockdowns in the export destinations," noted ING's chief economist for Greater China Iris Pang.
The industrial sector has been at the forefront of China's economic recovery, with the official manufacturing PMI above the 50 mark separating expansion from contraction since the hard-hit month of March.
Meanwhile, the sub-index measuring production increased to 54.7 from 53.9 and new orders reached 53.9 after remaining unchanged for two months at more than one point below.
"We are keeping our 1.7% gross domestic product growth forecast for 2020. This should be followed by 7.0% growth in 2021," Pang added.
