US economy rolls on, China's struggles get Xi's attention

<p>Kia ora,</p><p>Welcome to Wednesday’s Economy Watch where we follow the economic events and trends that affect Aotearoa/New Zealand.</p><p>I'm David Chaston and this is the international edition from Interest.co.nz.</p><p>And today we lead with economic news is taking a bit of a back seat today but there are still key trends to note.</p><p>First in the US, the latest <a href="https://www.pmi.spglobal.com/Public/Home/PressRelease/800861276eb949fc9646061f8eb2ffb4" target="_blank"><strong>PMI reading</strong></a> for the American manufacturing sector has it out of contraction to its best level in six months. This same 'flash' report for October for their services sector recorded a three month high. Both were better than anticipated.</p><p>The next <a href="https://www.richmondfed.org/-/media/RichmondFedOrg/region_communities/regional_data_analysis/regional_economy/surveys_of_business_conditions/manufacturing/2023/pdf/mfg_10_24_23.pdf" target="_blank"><strong>regional Fed factory survey</strong></a>, this one from the Richmond Fed, broadly confirmed the factory levels in their mid-Atlantic region. But they recorded a much <a href="https://www.richmondfed.org/-/media/RichmondFedOrg/region_communities/regional_data_analysis/regional_economy/surveys_of_business_conditions/service_sector/2023/pdf/svc_10_24_23.pdf" target="_blank"><strong>weaker services</strong></a> result there.</p><p>Nationally however, the latest <a href="https://www.redbookresearch.com/" target="_blank"><strong>Redbook retail survey</strong></a> of bricks & mortar stores (on a same store basis) records a good expansion last week from a year ago (+5%), better than inflation by some margin now.</p><p>A feature of all these indicators is that job growth is holding and that inflation is easing.</p><p>In China, Bloomberg is <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-24/xi-makes-unprecedented-pboc-visit-in-sign-of-focus-on-economy" target="_blank"><strong>reporting</strong></a> that Xi Jinping made his first known visit to China’s central