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January 3, 2012 6:49 AM EST
manufacturing beat expectations in December, showing signs of stabilising after a two-month decline as orders from China and Germany picked up, although the risk of another recession persists, a survey shows.
ANALYSTS' COMMENTS:
ROSS WALKER, RBS
"It's a stagnation type number."
"The levels in the last couple of months were signalling a pretty aggressive contraction, which I thought was maybe exaggerating what we'd see in the official data.
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"But historically it's been a pretty good guide. So the fact that we have broad stabilisation is probably the best we can hope for."
"A quarterly contraction (in factory output) still looks likely, but on the basis of the December number it's maybe not going to be quite as severe as we feared.
"For GDP - though we'll have to see what the services PMI says - we've just about got our heads above water."
"The first half of the year will be very difficult, in large part because of the difficulties in the euro area. Things may bet getter over the year as a whole, but I don't think we're going to see any step change in Q1 or Q2."
(Reporting by London bureau)
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