Mubasher: Chinese factory activity grew slightly in October, despite the ongoing US-Sino trade conflict, private data showed on Thursday.

The Caixin purchasing managers’ index (PMI) gauging China’s manufacturing ticked up to 50.1 in October from 50 last September, remaining above the 50 mark which separates an expansion in manufacturing activity from a contraction.

Meanwhile, analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the index to decline to 49.9.

“Overall, expansion across the manufacturing sector was still weak,” CEBM Group’s director of macroeconomic analysis Zhengsheng Zhong commented.

The sub-index for new orders improved from a two-year trough reached last September, but still remained in negative territory, while new export sales dipped for the seventh month in a row.

“China’s economy has not seen obvious improvement,” Zhong said, adding that “production and business confidence continued to cool despite stable demand [while] the pressure on production costs didn’t ease.”

On Wednesday, official data showed that manufacturing PMI was at 50.2 in October, marking the weakest growth in more than two years.

The data came full month after the latest US tariffs came into effect in September.

Despite Chinese manufacturing data was positive in October, there will be more pressure from the US tariffs in the months ahead, UBS Investment Bank China economic research head Wang Tao told CNBC, predicting that PMI would fall in the next two months.

“Q4 and Q1 next year will feel the brunt of the tariff impact,” Tao added.