China manufacturing index falls to three-year low: govt

Manufacturing activity in China contracted at its fastest level in more than three years in January, government data showed Monday, underlining weakness in the world's second-largest economy. The official Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI), which tracks activity in factories and workshops, fell to 49.4, figures from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed. It was the sixth consecutive month that the official index showed contraction, which Bloomberg said was the longest such series on recor