The HSBC/Markit flash purchasing managers’ index (PMI), a monthly indicator published a week before the final PMI data is released, dived to 48 in November from 51 last month. A reading above 50 means expansion, while below indicates contraction. This would put pressure on Beijing to relax some monetary measures and ease the yuan’s appreciation against the U.S. dollar to give some breathing space to struggling exporters. “Industrial production growth is likely to slow further to 11% to 12% in coming months,” HSBC’s Chief China Economist Qu Hongbin said. “Growth is set to overtake inflation as Beijing policymakers’ top policy concern.” He added that weaknesses in November’s flash PMI arose largely from sluggish demand in domestic and external markets. Manufacturing input and output prices fell faster than expected and contracted for the first time since the middle of last year. Qu said the biggest worry was that tightening measures would not be lifted fast enough and a downturn in global trade would hit growth. UBS Economist Wang Tao expects Beijing to gradually allow more bank lending and fiscal spending. Wang expected China’s credit quota to rise to CNY8 trillion next year from this year’s CNY7.3 trillion to CNY7.4 trillion. The latest Moody’s Analytics research said there was reduced expectation of yuan appreciation, based on October’s net outflow of foreign currency from China.

UK publishing group Pearson agreed to buy China’s Global Education and Technology Group, which prepares students for English language tests, for USD155 million, extending its reach in China from eight cities to 60. In 2009 Pearson acquired the Wall Street English language centers, while Global Education and Technology has a network of 450 centers in China.

China’s annual production of oil and gas may jump nearly 30% by 2015, with gas being the main growth driver, the Ministry of Land and Resources said. Production may rise from 280 million tons of oil equivalent last year to 360 million tons by 2015, or 7.3 million barrels a day, according to Peng Qiming, Director of the Ministry’s Geological Survey Department. Production of gas may surge to almost 300 billion cubic meters by 2030, up from 94.2 billion cu m in 2010, according to Peng, thanks to expansion in the Odors, Tarim and Sichuan basins and increasing deepwater exploration efforts in the South China Sea. Barclays Capital said China’s oil demand will jump 45% from 2010’s level to 13.6 million barrels a day by 2015, “significantly higher” than the consensus expectations of the International Energy Agency (IEA), the United States Energy Information Administration and the OPEC Secretariat. “That industrialization and rising income level have driven a steady increase in per capita energy demand in China is not news, but the sheer scale of that rise is startling,” Barclays Analyst Miswin Mahesh said in a report. Longer term, China’s oil and gas production may hit 410 million tons by 2020 and 450 million tons by 2030, according to Director Peng Qiming.

China will likely loosen its restrictions on the property market in the third quarter of next year, as plummeting prices could slow the growth of the economy, and local governments might start to reverse curbs in the second quarter of next year due to their heavy reliance on land sales for fiscal revenue, according to Liu Yuanchun, Deputy Director of the Institute of Economic Research at Renmin University of China in the report “China’s Macroeconomic Analysis & Forecasting”. Property prices, sales and investment will fall in the first quarter of next year because of the government’s tightening measures, the report said. A 20% fall in housing prices will force the government to adjust its policies, as a steeper decline would bring economic growth below 9% next year, it said. According to the report, the policy shift will probably take place in the third quarter of 2012 when the central government will relax credit for the property market and loosen limits on home purchases. In October, Chinese cities reporting a fall in new home prices finally outnumbered those registering growth, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced.

Chinese retailers who braced themselves a decade ago for an influx of competitors, such as Carrefour and Walmart, have matched, and in some cases, even outclassed their international rivals. Fujian-based retailer New Hua Du Supercenter announced it would acquire six stores run by E-Mart, South Korea’s biggest supermarket chain, for CNY125 million. The stores are in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces. The deal – the first buyout by a Chinese retailer of a foreign-invested supermarket in China – will see another Fujian company, Yonghui Superstores, buy E-Mart’s only store in Beijing, pending shareholder approval. China opened its retail industry to foreign competitors in 1995, allowing them to form joint ventures with Chinese companies. Restrictions were further eased in 2001, when the country joined the World Trade Organization (WTO). Under the WTO deal, China agreed to remove all limits on shareholding, shop numbers, and shop locations for foreign players by 2005. Almost all of the world’s top retailers have since opened for business in China. By last August, hypermarket giant Walmart had 189 outlets in China; while its major rival Carrefour had more than 180. Other global players with a China presence include Taiwan-based RT-Mart, Tesco of Britain, Metro of Germany, the CP-Lotus hypermarket chain operated by Thailand’s Chia Tai Group, Aeon of Japan, and French retailer Auchan. Foreign companies dominated the hypermarket sector in China, with more than half of the market, but local retailers led in terms of mid-sized supermarkets and convenient stores, which are particularly popular in second- and third-tier cities, the South China Morning Post reports.