Policy fine-tuning needed

The signs suggest that China's economic slowdown has become more entrenched as both official and private manufacturing activity indices continued to edge down in June.

The official purchasing managers' index dropped to 50.1 in June from 50.8 in May, while the HSBC PMI for June declined to 48.2, its lowest level since September 2012 and down from May's final reading of 49.2.

While the official PMI reading was slightly better than market expectations, it is worrying that the indices indicate there has been an across-the-board weakening across the economy.