Activity in China’s factory sector expanded slightly in June though not as much as expected, while growth in the services sector sped up, official surveys showed, offering some signs that the world’s second-largest economy may be starting to slowly level out after a raft of support measures. Beijing has rolled out a flurry of steps since last year, including interest rate cuts and more infrastructure spending, but analysts remain wary about the outlook given the still-weak property market, erratic global demand for China’s exports and fears of a collapse in its wild stock market. The government is due to release second-quarter gross domestic product data on July 15 and many economists expect growth to dip below 7 percent, which would be the weakest performance since the global financial crisis. “In general, the softness in the manufacturing sector remains, requiring more policy recalibration”, Liu Li-Gang and Zhou Hao at […]