Asian markets jump after surprise bounce in China’s manufacturing

Asian markets rose in early trading Monday after encouraging economic news from China.

China’s official purchasing managers index, released Sunday, showed that the country’s manufacturing sector rebounded strongly in March, to a six-month high of 50.5, from 49.2 in February. Later, the private Caixin China manufacturing purchasing managers index rose to 50.8 in March from 49.9 in February, expanding for the first time in four months. The readings helped ease worries that the world’s second-largest economy was significantly slowing down.

The Shanghai Composite

SHCOMP, +2.43%

surged 2.3%, and the smaller-cap Shenzhen Composite

399106, +3.16%

soared 3% on the news. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index

HSI, +1.59%

rose 1.5%, and Japan’s Nikkei

NIK, +1.43%

was up 1.9%. South Korea’s Kospi

SEU, +1.34%

advanced 1.2% Benchmark indexes in Taiwan

Y9999, +0.01%