BEIJING—Activity in China’s critical manufacturing sector picked up in November, as robust global demand for Chinese exports boosted the world’s second-largest economy. An official gauge of factory activity, the purchasing managers index, edged up to 51.8 in November from 51.6 in October, the National Bureau of Statistics reported Thursday. The reading beat a median forecast of 51.5 by economists polled by The Wall Street Journal and kept the index above the 50-mark that separates expansion from contraction for the 16th month...

Source: Wall Street Journal November 30, 2017 04:37 UTC