beijing says china is still on track to hit its growth target of around 65 percent down from 69 percent in 2017 beijing chinas factory activity contracted in december for the first time in over two years highlighting the struggles facing beijing as it seeks to end a bruising trade war with washington and reduce the risk of a sharper economic slowdown in 2019 the increasing strain on factories signals a continued loss of momentum in china adding to worries about softer global growth especially if the sinous dispute persists trade frictions are already disrupting global supply chains fuelling concerns of a bigger blow next year to world trade investment and financial markets advt the official purchasing managers index pmi the first snapshot of chinas economy each month fell to 494 in december below the 50point level that separates growth from contraction according to data from the national bureau of statistics nbs on monday it was the first contraction since july 2016 and the weakest reading since february 2016 analysts had forecast it would dip to 499 from 500 the previous month china is expected to roll out more economic support measures in coming months on top of a raft of initiatives this year a prolonged downturn in the factory sector key for jobs would likely spark further steps to juice domestic demand in november industrial output rose the least in nearly three years while earnings growth at industrial firms fell for the first time in nearly three years a pmi subindex on overall factory output prices fell to 433 in december from 464 pointing to continued pressure on corporate earnings a gauge on overall production fell to 508 the lowest since february from 519 new orders an indicator of future activity continued to soften reinforcing views that business conditions in china will likely get worse before they get better a subindex for total new orders contracted for the first time in at least a year falling to 497 amid persistently weak demand at home and abroad advt new export orders shrank for a seventh straight month with the subindex falling to 466 from 470 chinas auto sector has been particularly hard hit sales in the worlds biggest auto market are on track to fall for the first time since at least 1990 last december we saw overall china carmakers capacity utilisation rate at around 56 percent but now we estimate it is roughly 50 percent shanghaibased senior analyst alan kang at lmc automotive told reuters carmakers in general are cutting production trade war uncertainties there is also uncertainty over whether china and the united states can bridge their many differences during a temporary ceasefire in the trade war at the beginning of this month us president donald trump and chinese president xi jinping agreed to a 90day ceasefire that delayed a planned jan 1 us increase of tariffs on 200 billion worth of chinese goods while they negotiate while trump said over the weekend that