Private sector slows

Growth of China's private sector continued to cool at the start of 2011, with business activity rising at the slowest rate in four months, HSBC said in a report released Wednesday.
Manufacturing output rose robustly in January.
However, this was offset by only a modest expansion in the service sector, where activity growth eased to the third-lowest in the five-year survey history. This was signalled by the seasonally adjusted HSBC Business Activity Index falling to 52.0 from 53.1 in the final month of 2010.