BEIJING—Factory activity in China is expected to have contracted for the third month in a row in July, a Reuters poll showed, underlining the intensifying strains on the world’s second-biggest economy from a protracted trade war with the United States.
The official Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for July is set to have edged up to 49.6 from June’s reading of 49.4, according to the median forecasts of 34 economists. That still left it below the 50-point mark that separates expansion from contraction on a monthly basis.
