Thanks to improving underlying demand and efforts to boost new orders, the pace of new business expansion was the fastest since December.
That also pushed up business confidence as the subindex of future activity increased for the first time in three months amid hopes that new product lines, expansion plans and rises in client budgets will help boost sales.
However, better sales and business confidence failed to translate into higher recruitment.
Employment levels shrank for a second successive month in March, though the rate of job shedding eased from February.
According to respondents, resignations among staff and redundancies to improve productivity resulted in the fall in payroll numbers.
Growth in supply and demand in both the manufacturing and services sectors accelerated slightly, with improved exports and sustained market optimism
Taken together with the upbeat Caixin manufacturing PMI, the Caixin/S&P’s composite PMI rose to 52.7 last month from 52.5 in February.
It marked the highest reading since May 2023.
“Growth in supply and demand in both the manufacturing and services sectors accelerated slightly, with improved exports and sustained market optimism,” said Wang Zhe, economist at Caixin Insight Group.
But Wang noted employment in both sectors continued to contract, while input and output prices remaining low, indicating that “sluggish demand persisted”.
